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Speeches and Essays 



ByR.C.Duff 



press or 

REIN ft SONS COMPANY 
HOUSTON. TEXAS 



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.1175- 



COPYRIGHT 1915 

BY REIN & SONS COMPANY 

HOUSTON, TEXAS 




©CI. L33 



PEJEFACE 

The accompanying articles, essays, 
speech, and poem in blank verse by Mr. 
Duff were produced by the author and 
at contemporary dates furnished to the 
press, during the first year of the present 
general war in Europe. Some of the 
articles containing an element of prophecy, 
the publishers deem it of interest to note 
the dates at which originally they respec- 
tively appeared. A continuing demand 
which otherwise cannot be supplied, has 
resulted in this compilation and repro- 
duction. The Publishers. 



INDEX 



GENESIS OF THE GREAT WAR 7 

Chapter I — Bursting of the Storm 9 

Chapter II — Murder of Austrian Heir 

Apparent 14 

Chapter III — Russia Particeps Criminis 17 

Chapter IV — William II of Germany... 20 
Chapter V — Mobilization of Russian 

Army de Facto War 25 

Chapter VI — Teuton and Slav Compared 29 

GERMANIA DEFENDER 35 

THE WAR IS OVER 41 

Chapter I — Final Result Determined .... 43 

Chapter II — Situation on Western Battle 

Front 45 

Chapter III — Situation on Eastern Battle 

Line 54 

Chapter IV — The Affray at the Dar- 
danelles 59 

Chapter V — Situation on Italian Battle 

Line 61 

GERMANY, ENGLAND AND UNITED 

STATES 69 

AN EXPLANATION 95 

OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT WIL- 
SON 101 

SEVEN QUESTIONS ANSWERED.... 123 




DUFF 



To every man who love* the Truth, and 
does not fear to talk it out aloud, this little 
volume is dedicated by 

THE AUTHOR. 

Houston, Texas, September 1B S 1915. 



©ElESIS OF THE CHEAT WA1 

(Amloagii 11, 1M4) 



IBIB ©F TIE ©MEAT WAE 
CHAPTER s 

It has come. That dark and dreadful 
hour against which, for a generation, all 
of Europe has prepared and all of hu- 
manity has prayed, has burst in storm and 
terror. The earth staggers beneath the 
tread of armed millions, and already at 
many points of contact rage hostilities, 
which, ere concluded, likely will rend the 
map of Western Europe and make its soil, 
from the Baltic Ocean to the Adriatic Sea, 
an universal field of carnage. 

Never in this world before (forgetting 
nothing in the way of former wars of 
which history makes mention) has mad- 
dened humanity assembled, for the pur- 
poses of death and destruction, forces so 
vast, equipped with arms and instruments 
so efficient for slaughter and ruin, nor in 
an environment of place and circum- 
stances where war could wreak such utter 
havoc. 

It is in some sort a privilege to be of the 
generation that witnesses while it endures 
an event the most momentous that has oc- 
curred since the Crucifixion. 

I doubt whether in the world's history 
any conflict ever occurred involving great- 
er consequences, and while probably no 

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Ge h mania Defender 

such event ever transpired where there 
appeared upon the surface so little occa- 
sion for war, yet the fundamental grounds 
of national quarrel are substantial and 
deep. 

The actual underlying contention, the 
very root and occasion of this war, is the 
steady pressure of the Slavonic races of 
Eastern Europe and of Asia against the 
peoples of Western Europe for the grad- 
ual possession and occupancy of the terri- 
tories of the latter. 

Consulting the map of Europe, it will 
be observed that already the territory 
under the dominions of the Slav, notably 
Russia, lloumania, Serbia, and Monte- 
negro, are vastly larger than the balance 
of the continent. Austria itself, domi- 
nated by its German faction, long has 
contained in its bosom the seed of danger 
in the presence of an ever-increasing popu- 
lation of Slavs. Bulgaria is largely Slav. 
The balance of Europe — Germany, Bel- 
gium, France, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, 
Portugal, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, the 
Netherlands, England, Ireland and Scot- 
land — are, in area, if one will only ob- 
serve, little better than a mere fringe along 
the shores of the Atlantic Ocean/ North 
Sea and Mediterranean, clinging grimly 
to the western edge of the continent, while 
the vast domain of the Slav sweeps in solid 

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Ger mania Defender 

and continuous form, back into the inte- 
rior, across Europe and across Asia, from 
the Baltic Ocean and Caspian Sea, six 
thousand miles to the waters of the Pacific. 
Russia and Siberia alone contain 8,660,000 
square miles of territory and the magni- 
tude of that area is more readily realized 
by observing that the whole of Austria- 
Hungary and Germany contains only 
449,765 square miles. 

Roumania, Serbia and Montenegro are 
mere outpost positions for the great Slav 
family behind them in Russia and Siberia, 
and while, under the threat of compulsion 
by Western European nations, they are 
maintaining governmental independence 
of Russia, in race, religion, sympathy and 
interest they are one with Russia, and ex- 
tend the Slav dominion to the Adriatic 
Sea, half encircling the territories of Ger- 
many and Austria, home seat of the Teu- 
tonic races. 

Of all peoples that ever lived, with the 
possible exception of the British, the Slavs 
are the most avaricious for land. In Rus- 
sia and Siberia alone they hold already 
one-sixth of the land surface of the globe. 
They today occupy more and in proportion 
beneficially utilize less land than any race 
on earth that pretends to civilization. Yet, 
hardly a decade passes unmarked by 
some new aggression on alien territory. 

(ID 



Ger mania Defender 

Only the keen discernment of Japan ten 
years ago, seasonably penetrating Rus- 
sia's ulterior designs on the vast domain of 
Manchuria, followed by prompt and suc- 
cessful warfare, prevented a long contem- 
plated spoliation of the Chinese empire. 
Thrown back from the East by the unex- 
pectedly valiant arms of the Japanese, 
they have in the past few years renewed 
their old designs toward the southwest, and 
the attitude of their blood-brethren in Ser- 
bia has afforded them an easy cloak be- 
neath which to mask insidious approaches 
that have had in mind not merely the ex- 
tension of Russian power over the Slav 
states of the Balkan Peninsula, but deeply 
studied designs on those territories of 
Austria-Hungary, such as Bosnia-Herze- 
govina, where the Slav population is nu- 
merous. 

In this enterprise Serbia, according to 
many evidences, has been and is Russia's 
willing agent. 

Bosnia-Herzegovina, territories con- 
taining an area of 19,696 square miles, 
with a preponderating Slav population, 
down to 1878 were under the heel of the 
Turk, and the fruitful source of religious 
disturbances. Their deliverance was ac- 
complished following the Russo-Turkish 
war by the treaty of Berlin in the year 
mentioned, transferring the administration 

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Germania Defender 



of their affairs to Austria, retaining, how- 
ever, a species of nominal title in Turkey. 
Austria has redeemed them from substan- 
tial semi-savagery, has restored and main- 
tained peace and order, has built them a 
system of railroads, established schools, 
and in late years created in their territory 
a condition of business prosperity such as 
they never knew before. The Serbian 
Slav, who had witnessed the establishment 
of Austrian guardianship over Bosnia- 
Herzegovina with jealous eyes, has never 
ceased to plot their accession to Serbia, 
and in 1908 Austria, conscious of the dan- 
ger involved in their anomalous attitude, 
combined title to its existing possession 
and responsibility by annexing them. 
Strange to say Turkey, the power really 
authorized to complain, acquiesced quietly, 
but Serbia, while devoid of any rights 
whatever in the matter, has nursed a venom 
on that account that is directly the occa- 
sion of the cataclysm now overwhelming 
Europe. 

Its plotting, as regards Bosnia-Herze- 
govina, has been open and national, per- 
meating government and military circles 
and beyond question has had the sympathy 
and support of Russia. Nothing could be 
more consistent with the general policy of 
the Slavs in that quarter of the world. 

(13) 



C E R MAN I A 1) E F E N D E B 

obiaftieir nn 

Mimirdl^ir ©1! Arasftrusicn SMo Appsunennft 

They had looked forward to the death 
oi' Franz Joseph, the aged Emperor oi' 
Austria-Hungary, whose personality they 
have thought the only tie binding the ill- 
assorted elements oi' the dual monarchy in 
union, expecting that nn his demise the 
empire would disintegrate and that hour 
he opportune for the Slav to grasp with 
greedy hands its dismemhered southern 
provinces. Latterly, however, it has been 
manifest that in the Archduke Franz Fer- 
dinand, heir to Fran/ Joseph's throne, 
Austria- Hungary possessed and Slavdom 
would have to deal with a man, big, hold 
and amply strong to hold the reins oi' pow- 
er in the dual monarchy, and moreover, a 
man most conspicuously inimical to all that 
they intended. 

They simply murdered him. In the 
latter part oi' last June, the archduke, tak- 
ing with him his wife, in the course of 
administrative work visited Serajevo, the 
eapital of Bosnia-Herzegovina, near the 
Serbian boundary. Passing through the 
streets in a carriage on his way to the city 
hall, an effort was made to murder him by 
exploding a bomb. It failed; he was un- 

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Ge it mania Defender 

harmed and continued his trip. But so 
persistent and bold were the assassins that 
on his return through the streets some 
minutes later, a Serbian, Prinzip, burst 
through the crowd and by the archducal 
guard, sprang on the steps of the arch- 
duke's carriage and emptied a revolver 
point blank into the bodies of the arch- 
duke and his wife, killing both. 

This assassin, according to the declara- 
tion of the Austrian ministry, as regards 
his plot and the instruments for its con- 
summation, was traced clearly and directly 
back to semi-official Serbian anti-Austrian 
societies in Belgrade. 

Before God and man this cruel and 
cold-blooded murder represented not mere- 
ly an attack by the individual Prinzip 
against the individual Franz Ferdinand of 
Hapsburg, but by Serbia and the Slavonic 
race against the throne, the continuity of 
the imperial family, and the integrity of 
the dual monarchy. It was not merely 
ground for war, but was war in a most 
revolting and inadmissible form. 

What followed is too recent to require 
extended review. Every power engaged 
in the present war knew exactly the signifi- 
cance of this murder, and it should not, 
in human nature, have been hard to fore- 
see that the hour had come when Austria, 
Teutonic Austria, would take its sword in 

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Geiuiania Defender 

hand and God willing once for all stamp 
to death the hateful Slav faction which, 
on its southern border, was eternally plot- 
ting Austrian destruction. 

After calling on Serbia to root out 
these things itself, to be agreed to in forty- 
eight hours, Austria declared war. 

It has been said that within the time 
fixed by Austria, Serbia signified its will- 
ingness to comply with all but one of the 
Austrian demands. The fact is, and all 
Europe knew it, that, however directly the 
Serbian government might signify in 
words its willingness to respect the integ- 
rity of Austria, and to abolish conspiracies 
against Austrian dominion in Bosnia- 
Herzegovina, before it could perform its 
promises, it would require either to make 
over the nature of the Serbian Slavs or re- 
people Serbia. 

The fact is when Serbian plotting had 
proceeded to the point of assassinating 
members of the Austrian imperial family, 
there was nothing left for it short of puni- 
tive war bv Austria on Serbia. 



(16) 



Germania Defender 

(S1A1PTIEM HEII 
MonggSa IP&ir&^pg (CirSiEanimSs 

The question, big with fate, was, how 
far would Slavonic Russia go to support 
the guilty nation? 

Had no question of racial ambition, no 
greed for power nor territory, no brother- 
hood-bund that made the Serbian's act its 
own, underlaid this situation, never in this 
world would Russia have drawn its sword 
to prevent the punishment Serbia has so 
long invited and deserved. It was bound 
by no treaty with Serbia that required it 
to fight Austria. Yet all Europe knew 
that on the instant Austria attacked 
Serbia, even in so righteous a cause, Rus- 
sia would attack Austria. 

Why? Can any man justify such at- 
titude ? 

By making common cause with Serbia 
would she not avow her partnership not 
only in Serbia's immediate crime, becom- 
ing accessory after the fact, but openly 
disclose her privity to all the deep design- 
ing that lay behind those murders? This 
was obvious, but it proved no deterrent to 
the Czar. Issuing a statement that Rus- 
sia could not be indifferent to the fate of 
its Slavonic kindred in Serbia, he set in 

(17) 



Germania Defender 

motion the machinery of general war by 
ordering the mobilization of the Russian 
army on the frontiers of Austria and Ger- 
many, and thereby set out on a program to 
garner, if he could, the fruits of the gen- 
eral Slavonic policy of years in the Bal- 
kan region. 

In this act Nicholas consciously took 
the helm of affairs. Immediately the Aus- 
tro- Serbian situation was dwarfed to in- 
significance. The two, had he let their im- 
broglio alone, might have battled away in- 
definitely; no other nation would have in- 
terposed, and, whatever the event, no 
great harm to humanity would have be- 
fallen. Nicholas, could he but have for- 
gotten for a time Russia's ancient lust for 
land, could he have but forsworn an un- 
righteous blood-brotherhood that has no 
better basis than universal Slavonic greed 
for the possessions of other peoples, held 
in his hands for several fateful days the 
power to perpetuate the peace of Europe. 
Knowing first that by the terms of the 
triple alliance, should Russia move on 
Austria, Germany was bound in honor as 
in interest, to make common cause with 
Austria; and, second, that in such case un- 
happy France and England, against their 
own interest and without a stake in the 
quarrel, were bound by a subsisting sim- 
ilar convention they never should have 

(18) 



Ger mania Defender 

made, to make common cause with him, 
it was for the Slav to say whether the con- 
test should limit itself to a small space in 
the Balkans, soon to find surcease, and be 
devoid of either great disaster or great 
consequences, or whether by making Ser- 
bia's quarrel his own, plunge at once a 
continent in one mad welter of blood, 
flame and fierce destruction, the dreadful 
shock of which would shake the earth, the 
end of which no vision could perceive, and 
the results of which no mind might dis- 
cern. 

He chose for war! 

Immediately that Russia ordered the 
mobilization of its army, signifying its 
obvious designs on Austria, and by con- 
sequence of the terms of the triple alliance 
necessarily inviting and defying action by 
Germany, there appeared in quick action 
the most remarkable figure, and in this 
country the least understood, on earth 
today. 



(19) 



Germania Defender 



CHAIPTIEM HV 
ml U ©g ©©raaumy 

William II, King of Prussia and 
Kaiser of Germany, is now 55 years of 
age. He ascended the imperial tlirone in 
1888, and therefore has reigned 26 years. 
They have been years of profound peace 
for Germany, unmarked till now by any 
quarrel whatsoever with any other nation. 
In that time France, England, Russia, 
Italy, Spain, Serbia, Bulgaria, Roumania, 
Belgium, Montenegro, Greece and Tur- 
key, in short, nine-tenths of Europe, all 
have been at war once or more than once. 
But under the hand of William II Ger- 
many has slept in peace. 

Yet they have called him the "War 
Lord of Europe." 

The time has come for men who want 
to judge a vast and momentous event in 
the lights of facts and with fairness to 
brush away prejudice and misinformation. 

Germany is a constitutional monarchy, 
established in 1871 by the unification of 26 
separate German states similar in popula- 
tion, religion, language anl culture and 
indulging the same high racial and na- 
tional ideals and aspirations. In the bat- 
tle for German liberty and union Prussia, 

• 

(20) 



Germania Defender 

more than any other state, had led and 
bled, and by the constitution of the Em- 
pire the King of Prussia was nominated 
hereditary Kaiser of the German Empire. 

If ever country or people owed ag- 
grandizement and prosperity to the virtue 
and genius of a single family, Prussia 
owes that debt to the House of Hohen- 
zollern. Never in the world, according to 
the historical reading of this writer, has 
there appeared in human affairs another 
such family, who, rising out of an obscure 
position in life, and step by step for seven 
centuries, advancing from mere knight- 
errantry progressively to the titles of 
margrave, prince, elector and king, fur- 
nished without failure generation after 
generation men, who while born to and 
surrounded by all the appanages of power 
and finally of wealth, maintained in their 
private lives and government such high 
ideals of honor and such sincere and sin- 
gular devotion to the welfare of the peo- 
ple whom they ruled. 

When England, under the early mon- 
archs of the present House of Bruns- 
wick; France under the Bourbons, and 
Russia under the Romanoffs, presented to 
the world the spectacle of monarchs and 
courts steeped in licentiousness, frivolity 
and corruption, when morality in high 
circles was laughed at and public treas- 

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Ger mania Defender 

uries exhausted to build palaces for royal 
courtesans and to maintain worthless fa- 
vorites, the Hohenzollerns as electors of 
Brandenburg and after 1701 as Kings of 
Prussia, were holding stern and frugal 
state in Berlin, worshipping God accord- 
ing to their faith, drilling their troops and 
studying the economic interests of their 
people, while on his deathbed old Fred- 
erick William, the father of Frederick the 
Great, solemnly declared that in all his 
life he had never known a woman save 
Sophia Dorothea, his wife. 

Not always intellectually brilliant were 
they, but mentally solid; always true to 
themselves and their country; gluttons 
for hard work and devoted to duty; stern 
in defense of their personal right and rule 
and jealous of authority; yet it was Fred- 
erick the Great himself, who set before 
the eyes of his successors, of whom the 
present Kaiser is beyond question the 
most distinguished, the maxim in German 
government that "the prince is not the ab- 
solute master, but only the first servant 
of his people." 

Such was the family from whom the 
Kaiser springs. 

I have adverted to the fact that the 
world has called him the war lord since 
when, on the day of his accession to the 
throne, he issued an address to the Ger- 

(22) 



Germania Defender 

man army saying that it was the hope and 
salvation of its country, and because since 
that time he has constantly fostered the 
ideal of the "nation in arms," by which 
was implied universal training to arms of 
German citizens. 

The fact is, no man since Napoleon 
more clearly discerned the menace to 
Western Europe presented by the Slav 
than William II, and in view of the fact 
that today the whole of Europe has put 
upon the arms of the German people the 
double burden of dashing back that fatal 
tide while, at the same time, waging des- 
perate war with countries that ought to be 
fighting by their side, who can now deny 
the foresight and wisdom of the words and 
policies which, while he maintained utter 
peace, as did not his neighbor sovereigns, 
earned for him the title of the "War 
Lord"? On numerous occasions, in 
speeches and interviews, he has declared 
that while it was his purpose, by prepared- 
ness, to insure Germany immunity from 
outside attack, his aspiration otherwise 
was for the superior development of Ger- 
man industry, trade and commerce, work 
consistent only with the maintenance of 
peace. More than any monarch of his 
period he himself almost annually visited 
the other countries of Europe in personal 
efforts to establish and maintain senti- 

(23) 



Ger mania Defender 

ments of peace, based on mutual confi- 
dence and esteem. 

His work bore fruit. In the last quar- 
ter century German industry expanded 
be}^ond all calculation; German manufac- 
tures, fostered by a protective tariff, and 
by the Kaiser's policy in behalf of a Ger- 
man navy and a German merchant marine 
have penetrated every corner of the globe 
"Made in Germany" stamped on multi- 
tudes of articles used in every household 
the world over has become as common a* 
the alphabet. And the German people 
for all the cost of maintaining their greal 
army, never in all their history knew 
such prosperhy as William's policies have 
brought them during the last ten years. 

Such was the record of the man tc 
whom the burden of responsibility shifted 
on July 29, 1914, when word was flashed 
through the world that the Czar had or- 
dered an army of 1,200,000 Slavs to as- 
semble on the Austrian and German fron- 
tiers. 



(24) 



Ger mania Defender 



©HAFTER V 

M@lbnllfls©(fcn@nn ©2 Mungdknn Airss^ dl© 
Fadto War 

Armies are mobilized in this world for 
but one purpose, viz : to fight. Under the 
circumstances mentioned the order for 
mobilization by Russia was de facto the 
commencement of hostilities against both 
Austria and Germany, as definite and un- 
equivocal as is the case where an individual 
draws a pistol, cocks it and raises it toward 
another individual's head. And, moreover, 
since by previous pledge France and Eng- 
land had bound themselves that in any such 
case the quarrel of Russia was to be made 
their own, Russia's act was the act of 
France and England, and nothing re- 
mained prior to effusion of blood save 
verbal formalities that recognized the situ- 
ation of belligerency. 

In modern war, once that condition is 
established, the laggard is a fool. The 
government that hesitates gives half con- 
sent for its own territory to be made the 
theatre of war and for all the horrors of 
invasion to fall upon its own people. 

William acted with characteristic 
promptitude and decision. On July 29 he 
warned the Czar that he, of course, con- 

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Ger mania Defender 

strued mobilization by Russia to mean war, 
and called on him to avoid responsibility 
for that crime by revoking the order of 
mobilization. At the same time as to 
France, to insure against any possible 
chance of error, he inquired of its govern- 
ment whether it was the unalterable pur- 
pose of France to abide its engagement 
with Russia. Russia's reply was to further 
prosecute with fury its work of mobiliza- 
tion, and France's that it stood by its death 
pact with the Czar. 

What remained? Merely to strike — 
hard and quickly. 

First complying with the honorable 
usage in that regard that calls for open 
declaration of war ere striking the foe, 
William picked up the double gauntlet 
Russia and France had thrown at his feet, 
and gave his armies the order to march. 

I have seen much shallow comment be- 
wailing conditions in Europe, where, it is 
said, lust for blood and the personal ambi- 
tions of sovereigns have plunged their 
peoples into an unwelcome war. 

Be assured of this: The acts of Wil- 
liam in this matter are as certainly (and 
probably more certainly) a reflex of the 
German national spirit as that any act 
of war ever adopted by the American Con- 
gress represented American public senti- 
ment. He could not sustain for thirty days 

(26) 



Gee mania Defender 

nor would have dared ever to embark on 
the present titanic conflict, were he not 
supported by overwhelming public senti- 
ment in Germany, where the people are 
as cultured and as well informed concern- 
ing their interests as are the Americans. 

In this connection, we Americans, sub- 
merged in self-satisfaction concerning our 
own form of government, are prone to 
forget that an overwhelming proportion 
of the earth, as regards both area and 
population, adheres to and reveres the in- 
stitution of monarchy; yet the people of 
Europe, except in Russia, by their own 
volition exercise such preponderating pow- 
er as regards their governmental affairs 
that, if they chose, they can surely change 
either rulers or forms of government ; and 
today no throne in Western Europe is 
stable whose occupant in fundamental 
matters defies the public will or neglects 
the public welfare. In Norway so late as 
1905 that country having dissolved its 
union with Sweden, the people had in 
their hands the immediate matter of de- 
termining their new form of government, 
and clinging to the institution of mon- 
archy they elected a king, Haakon, the 
present monarch, by a popular vote, the 
vote standing 259,563 for Haakon, with 
only 69,264 against his election. 

The German people know — what puts 

(27) 



Germania Defender 

France and England to shame — that the 
conflict is essentially the age old battle 
renewed between the Teutonic and Sla- 
vonic races for control of Western Eu- 
rope, and for the survival there of the most 
cherished institutions of civilization, the 
best in science, art, literature and music, 
with which the Teutonic races have en- 
dowed every part of the earth except those 
parts impervious to such influences, domi- 
nated by the Slav. 



(#0 



Germania Defender 

CHAPTER VIE 

T@Qnft@na aumdl Slaw C@ii3aipsiir@dl 

Is it necessary in this day of enlighten- 
ment to institute a comparison between 
these races? Think only for a moment. 
Consider the civilization not merely of 
Germany and Austria, but of Holland, 
Denmark, Norway, Sweden, England and 
the United States of America, and remem- 
ber that German, Austro-German, Dutch- 
man, Dane, Norwegian, Swede, Angle, 
Saxon and Norman, and their descendants 
in England, America and everywhere, in- 
cluding, of course, a large element of the 
populations of Belgium and France, draw 
their blood from the self -same source, and 
that wherever that blood dominates, en- 
lightened and representative government, 
freedom of religion, freedom of speech 
and of the press, and, among the people, 
suitable guarantees of life, liberty and 
happiness prevail; none of which applies 
in any territory on earth dominated by the 
Slav, whose very name, in an age gone by, 
was the etymological derivative for our 
word "slave," in whose blood mingle 
strains from Tartar and Mongolian, and 
who at the end of a thousand years of his- 
tory and contact with enlightened peoples 

(29) 



G E It M A N I A D E F E N 1) E B 

has not yet been able to confer upon him- 
self any part whatever in the affairs of his 
government, whose people in general are 
unlearned and steeped in superstition, and 
whoso place in the useful sciences and arts, 
as well as the world of letters, commerce 
and trade is five hundred years behind the 
Teuton. It is as though Mexico, if peo- 
pled by overwhelming numbers, were to 
undertake the conquest of the United 
States. 

Shame on England! Germany today 
is fighting the battle of civilization, and 
England assigns no better reason for ally- 
ing herself against her cousins in blood 
than that the late development of German 
industry menaces English foreign trade! 

It is hard to assign any reason for 
France's adherence to Russia against the 
Germans other than the immemorial an- 
tagonism between French and Germans. 
"La revanche" as against Germany has 
been the undisguised policy of France 
since the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, as 
the result of which the French provinces 
of Alsace and Lorraine were taken over 
by Germany. Otherwise it is difficult to 
perceive any sentiment or interest that 
France possibly can have in common with 
the Slavs. But let it be remembered that 
only one hundred years ago the French 
under Napoleon had crushed Prussia like 

(30) 



G e r m a n i a Defender 

an eggshell, and spared not even their in- 
ternal autonomy or independenee. 

The fact is, could Britain forget its 
trade jealousy and France Alsace-Lor- 
raine every reason possible exists why both 
should be united with Germany to roll 
back from Western Europe that same 
Slavonic peril which the French a century 
ago vainly attempted to avert by their fa- 
mous and disastrous march to Moscow, 
and which, with better luck than Napoleon, 
both united with the Turks to check, in the 
Crimean War of 1859-'60. 

And should they in their present alli- 
ance be so unfortunate as to extort victory 
for Russia over German arms, every ele- 
ment in their natures must prove false to 
itself or within five years France and 
Britain, while Germany lies prostrate and 
bleeding, with all the power and resources 
left at their command, will in their turn 
be waging desperate war against Russia 
to save themselves from consequences that 
the aid they are now rendering Russia will 
devolve upon the whole of Western Eu- 
rope. 

In our public press and in personal 
discussions it has appeared to the present 
writer that Americans were jumping at 
hasty conclusions concerning the causes 
for and issues involved in the pending con- 
test. The foregoing review of the his- 

(31) 



Geemania Defender 

torical elements involved is offered for 
publication with the hope that it may aid 
a clearer and broader conception of the 
European situation, as regards which, in 
line with President Wilson's late plea for 
neutral consideration, while no American 
should be partisan, all Americans should 
be informed. 



(32) 



AMIA PEFIEMPJ 



!©„ 1918) 



Gee mania Defender 



AUEA PISFISM©] 



They say, Germania — that hostile world 
That now rings thee around with brutal steel, 
It says — that in those four and forty years, 
The while thou and thy children slept at peace, 
(Whereas the same-while, they who frown on thee 
Ranged all the earth with bloody hands, now at 
Each other's throats, now snatching colonies 
Wherever might be found a spot whose sons 
Were not sufficient to defend it) they — 
That world, declares that thou, the whilst thou slept 
Dreamed of wars — of horrid wars of conquest. 

And with the corners of their mouths pulled down, 
Their finger tips atouch and eyes rolled up, 
Murmur their pain that such depravity 
Should yet abide, even in dreams, among 
A Christian, self-styled cultured people! 

They charge not on thee any overt act; 
They say not that the mighty sword thou sheathed 
After Sedan, at Versailles, thenceforth left 
Its scabbard; but they say, that in thy heart 
Thou meditated war; complain that thou 
Permitted not that sword, of old so keen 
In thy behalf (and theirs) to go to rust; 
That many times in vain they pointed thee 
Examples, shining and blest, of nations 
Of which history has made some mention, 
That went disarmed and unprepared for war: 
Egypt, India, China, Korea, Persia, 
The Boer Republics, Poland, saying naught 
Of many other such nations whose names 
Are now no more remembered among men. 

What of it, O Germania, if that 
The time thou slept, thy slumbers were annoyed 
Ever by loud clashing of arms of theirs? 
If that through half-closed lids, thine eyes that slept, 
Yet never slept so soundly but they saw 
The portent of world-wide events, beheld 

(35) 



Germania Defender 



(Within the very time thou raised no hand), 

The deadly British grip tighten upon 

The throats of India and Egypt; saw 

The Boer Republics of South Africa 

Go down beneath a storm of shot and shell 

And losing nationality become 

"British South Africa"; beheld a joint 

British and Russian policy, meddling 

In the affairs of Persia, coiling there 

A serpent doomed to strangle her to death; 

Beheld Russia encroaching on China 
Until in deadly fear, Nippon, that knew 
The Bear and what his rough embrace implies, 
Risked all, and drove back from the Yellow Sea, 
Still hungry and unsatisfied, those hordes, 
Germania, that many times have brought 
The torch and sword across the Vistula 
Into the bowels of thy land; beheld 
"La Belle" France, vis et armis, seize and hold 
Defenseless Tunis and Algeria; 

Beheld that France building a chain of forts, 
Not only good for defense but a base 
For war upon thy western boundary, 
From Basel to the Belgian line; beheld 
Belgium, herself take up that work, and in 
Her turn, while leaving her French line exposed, 
Build Liege on thy flank, and point its guns, 
And those of Namur, toward thy River Rhine. 

Beheld Japan, polite and bland, at once, 
A pupil and a fellow in the school 
Of Europe, tutored by her great ally, 
Wage wars for conquest twice, and then garner 
The fruits of war by annexing Korea, 
Whose very name she struck from off the maps, 
Appropriately calling it — Cho-Sen. 

Beheld the wide and rolling deep enchained 
(The seas, to which the right of property 
Cannot at law pertain, and where, by right, 
By natural right, ships under every flag 
Must have — and have — a common home) enchained, 

(36) 



Ger mania Defender 



And narrowed down to a mere British lake 

By an assumption that "Britannia Rules 

The Wave," a claim in fraud of every land 

With shores upon the sea, and therefore good 

Only so far as might can make it right; 

And yet enforced by British policy 

Calling for ships of war at every hour 

Sufficient to combat whatever power 

Other two naval nations in concert 

Can put upon the sea. These things thou saw. 

Nor didst thou fail to see, and reflect on 
The "Strassburg Monument," a shrine whereon 
At Paris, in the heart of France, was kept 
Alive the fire of hate. The sombre crepe 
Renewed from time to time, for forty years, 
That hung about its base, proclaimed in ways 
The world could not misunderstand, a deep 
And deadly purpose at the cannon's mouth 
To seize again thine ancient heritage 
Of Alsace and Lorraine. This, too, thou saw. 

O thou Germania, disturber of 
The world-peace, why with all these presages, 
Abounding everywhere thy vision turned, 
Of universal good intent and love, 
Shouldst thou, unholy and unhappy one, 
Have called about thee all thy warlike sons 
And put into their hands cold steel, and bid 
Them keep it bright; have taught them all to sing 
A song discordant to the general ear, 
Of "Deutschland uber alles?" Deep thy fault! 

Nor was this all the measure of thy blame: 
They take it hard, Germania, and hold 
It matter of offense, that thou, thy son, 
Especially thy son, and King, should call 
On the Almighty God — associate 
Divinity in things of German kind. 
And "Ich und Gott" they misquote him as saying, 
To nurse a scorn not wholly based upon 
Their jealousy for precedence of "Gott." 

Since first the dread of death, or deep concern 
Regarding duties, such as fall upon 

(37) 



Q E B M A N I A 1) E P E N 1) E B 



The shoulders of a man whose public acts 

Make current history, engendered in 

The human mind a tendency to lean 

Upon l hope of superhuman aid, 

Mankind, that is, the best of it, has prayed. 

And in all times and countries things of weight, 

Of national importance, that effect 

The people's lives and welfare, have been deemed 

Fit matter for embodiment in prayers 

To the Most High. Even the Turcomen, 

The Sengalese, Japanese and Gurkhas, 

Now pouring death on you in cause not theirs, 

All feel a right to call on God, Allah, 

Mohammed, Budda, Brahma or Vishnu, 

According to the faith each holds at home, 

For aid in this their pious enterprise; 

And always everywhere is there indulged 

A national egotism in each land 

That God should favor it, in peace or war. 



But thou, O land of Martin Luther, by 
What right didst thou, or Wilhelm, son of more 
Than twenty generations of real Men, 
Who, for eight hundred years have ruled in fear 
Of God, and actual belief in Him 
(And who, since he by law is spokesman for 
And himself typifies the German State, 
Might, on the ancient ground, "vox populi, 
Vox Dei est," be pardoned if at times 
He speaks albeit in the German tongue, 
The idea of the Latin), how merited thou 
Or he the right to ask God to concern 
Himself about the Germans? It was wrong! 



And so, Germania, their combined sword 
Is at thy throat, and they have sworn never 
To sheathe it till thou liest in the dust, 
Stripped of thy fairest members, penuried, 
Thy pennon driven from the seas, 
Thy sons expatriate, and all the debt 
Thou owest to this world (God save the mark!) 
For giving it, decade on decade, all 
The best thou hadst or it has ever known, 
Of all the arts of peace that serve to make 
Life glad, paid up in full in blood and woe. 

(38) 



Gehmania Defender 



O Germania, remember Leuthen, 
Remember Rossbach, and the Seven Years! 
And if at times, beholding all about thee, 
Wherever thou canst see, only a wild 
And surging sea of foes, thy mighty heart 
Grow weak, or long to know that somewhere in 
This wide and callous world, thou hast some friends, 
Be sure that there are many undeceived, 
Who know thy work and worth and true intent, 
And bid thee God speed in this hour of peril. 



(39) 



THE W^M ES ©¥3 
(Jaime 20, IMS) 



(; E S m a N I a I) E i E N D E I 



TEIE WAK Eg ©VEK 

ClfflAJPTTEIR II 
FSnaaiD lRasdlft D<&(teinmniin<edl 

The war is over. 

Men yet must die, a million perhaps, 
or more; but every life now spent is thrown 
away, for, speaking to the substance of 
the thing, namely, the ultimate result, the 
war is over and the Teutonic allies have 
won. 

If this be true, and I believe it, the 
world, during the last ten months, has wit- 
nessed the most amazing performance in 
military kind ever accomplished by a na- 
tion since the beginning of history. 

For months every careful student of 
Europe's great war has stood on tip-toe, 
awaiting the opening of this spring's Cam- 
paign denoting the full extent of the allies' 
power for offensive war, and the antici- 
pated entrance of Italy into the European 
melee in their behalf. 

These blows have fallen. What are the 
results? The German western battle line, 

dug into earth, rooted there and solidified 
with concrete, is holding with all the im- 
pregnate strength of a granite mountain. 

(43) 



Germania Defender 



while English, Irish, Scotch, French, Bel- 
gians, Sengalese, Tnrcos, Hindoos, Moors, 
Algerians and Tripolitans, white, yellow 
and black, in countless numbers, dash 
themselves, a pitiable human tide, to mere 
bloody death against it, deeming it mo- 
mentous if in any week, and at a cost of 
thousands of lives, they advance only a 
few hundred yards and hold them. 

What a long, long way it is to Ber- 
lin, viewed in the light of such progress! 



(44) 



Germ an i a Defender 

CISAFfEM EH 
THifc Sii(liinatii©iia @cn the Waste™ IBaM© 



This situation, if stable (and I regard 
it stable), is victory for Germany, so far 
as the western campaign is concerned. 
Why? Because, so soon as Germany had 
swung her battle line as far as at the out- 
set might be, into the territories of France 
and Belgium, to consolidate herself upon 
that line and merely hold it and the terri- 
tory behind it, which includes practically 
all of Belgium and ten of the richest 
provinces of France, to the end of hostil- 
ities, against the superior power of the 
Allies, will be and is victory, and most 
amazing victory! 

To see this indulge a short restrospect : 

On July 28 last, Austria declared war 
on Serbia; the following day Russia be- 
gan to mass troops on the western borders 
of Austria and Germany; on the 29th, 
France began mobilizing; on the 30th, 
Germany sent its ultimatum to Russia, de- 
manding that Russian mobilization cease 
within twenty-four hours else Germany 
would mobilize; August 1, Russian mobili- 

(45) 



Germania Defender 

zation continuing, Germany declared war 
on Russia. 

Here the original game was set, and 
Germany and her ally against Russia and 
Serbia only, had on their hands war with 
foes fifty per cent, greater in numbers, 
and frontiers to protect a thousand miles 
in length. 

But in view of the Franco-Russian en- 
tente, Germany, before crystallizing her 
Russian campaign, imperatively required 
to know at once whether France purposed 
to fall upon Germany's back, and so de- 
manded of the Republic an announcement 
of her intentions ; the answer was for war ; 
therefore, on August 2, Germany started 
its movement on France, and on the 3rd 
issued its declaration of war. 

Thus trouble doubled, front and rear, 
and added three hundred miles of new 
frontier on which to meet, foot to foot, 
a third adversary, completely ready, and 
burning to wipe out a score of more than 
forty years' standing. 

August 4, Germany undertook to 
strike France through Belgium, and Bel- 
gium, resisting, chose war with the Ger- 
mans rather than accord them right of 
passage, and had at hand two hundred and 
fifty thousand men of all arms, sturdy 

(46) 



Ger mania Defender 

Belgians, prompt and zealous to say "no 
thoroughfare" to an enemy of France. 

August 4, England declared war on 
Germany ; and August 6, Italy, suffering 
with palpitation of the heart (aggravated 
by nascent symptoms of "national aspira- 
tions," due to grow with lapse of time and 
with the growth of German death-lists,) 
fell away, and left the two German nations 
to stand alone. 

In such a war the initial strategy of 
Germany was necessarily an offensive for 
her defense, and since she set the pace, 
chose to strike rather than to parry, the 
strategy of the Allies in the west was nec- 
essarily defensive. 

But considering the odds against her, 
and the year or years of fight to follow, 
once the battle had been carried across Bel- 
gium and into France, the Allies by now 
being well afield, with daily accessions of 
numbers, and Russia calling for protracted 
attention, her correct strategy was to draw 
back Von Kluck's advanced army to a 
point consistent with her general line, take 
root on the soil where she stood, and let 
her raging world of enemies wear them- 
selves out against her trenches. This she 
has done, and I verily believe can hold that 

(47) 



German i a Defender 

line against all comers whomsoever for- 
ever. 

The end of the allied forward move- 
ment following Yon Kluck's retrograde 
from the Marne and the beginning of 
trench warfare across North and North- 
eastern France occurred September 10, 
last. 

Nine months have passed and every 
day since has been a day of battle on that 
front. France has called up her last re- 
serves, viz : she has put upon the battle line 
absolutely all her available fighting ma- 
terial ; England has had abundant time to 
send to every corner of the earth for aid, 
as well as to whip into the shape of soldiers 
such fractions of her own population as 
have avowed a stomach for the war ; every 
available factory in the United States and 
Canada, including the railroad shops of 
Canada, and every species of foundry or 
plant with an organization convertible to 
the use, regardless of expense, in the 
United States, are and for months have 
been pouring out and rushing to the Al- 
lies, an utter ocean of shells, shrapnel, 
cartridges, bombs, rifles, rapid-f irers, high 
explosives, armored automobiles, clothing, 
saddles, harness, food and footwear; in 
short, the United States itself, so far as 
furnishing all products and manufactures 
required for war can make it so, has been 

(48) 



Ger mania Defender 

and is to all effectual intents and purposes 
as completely a party to the cause of the 
Allies as it could be were it itself at war 
with Germany. 

And yet the German line holds. 

Lord Kitchener told the world last fall 
that the war would really begin not until 
about May 1, and since that time England 
has spent two and one-half billion dollars, 
actually doubling her public debt, getting 
ready for her spring campaign. The 
spring has come and the spring has gone ; 
on April 11, the British held 32l^ miles of 
the allied western line, which is 593% 
miles in length; on April 18, having now 
brought to the field 750,000 men, she set 
out to reap the fruit of all her preparation, 
and to show what she could do when good 
and ready. At Ypres, "Hill 60" and 
Neuve Chappelle her men did their gal- 
lant utmost, expending more ammuni- 
tion in the course of some several days 
than they employed during the entire 2% 
years of the Boer war, and losing more 
men by death than their country had on 
the field at the battle of Waterloo. They 
gained only in part the near-by positions 
they aspired to, in a few days losing them 
in part again, and the stubborn Germans 
still are seated in their trenches just a few 
feet away, as firmly rooted as ever, and 
still singing "Deutschland uber alles." 

(49) 



Ger mania Defender 

Calculated by such experiences, the Brit- 
ish are yet about a million miles distant 
from the Rhine. 

At the end of almost a year, with their 
enemy in the very bosom of France and 
the task set themselves being to drive him 
out of France and Belgium, to cross the 
Rhine, to disintegrate the German empire, 
and to abolish the House of Hohenzollern, 
and with their own power developed to its 
maximum, England and France alike, day 
by day issue formal governmental reports, 
still sounding distinct notes of triumph if 
they can say, u we today repulsed all as- 
saults of the Germans." 

Can the Allies improve their situation 
on this front? Will they likely ever be 
stronger than they were this spring, as re- 
gards men, munitions or money? As to 
France, the statement is made above, 
quoted from the London Times, that she 
has called her last fighting men to the line : 
as to her munitions, eighty per cent, of the 
pig iron production of France lies in that 
particular territory occupied by the Ger- 
mans, and the Republic would now be 
dangerously near the end of her supplies 
were it not for her access to England and 
to the inexhaustible resources of the Unit- 
ed States. Financially her situation is 
better probably than that of England, al- 
though so far she has carried her war 

(SO) 



Germania Defender 

expenses practically as a deficit to open 
account, finding the funds at bank on 
short term notes, a strange expedient for 
a long war, and the real test of her finan- 
cial strength must come later when she 
undertakes to fund the debt. 

As to Great Britain, her effort to raise 
a great army through her system of volun- 
teer enlistments, similar to the practice 
prevailing in the United States, regarded 
in the light of her necessities, has been a 
failure. Her task was during the interval 
of time afforded between the closing in of 
winter and the opening of spring, to raise 
an army adequate, in connection with the 
French, Belgian and Colonial forces, to 
break the German line and to do it this 
summer. How have the British respond- 
ed? The City of London alone contains 
more men of military age than the whole 
of Great Britain sent to the field at the 
opening of the spring campaign. Not 
awaiting the first of May, she leveled the 
blows which she had promised would be 
fatal, between the middle and the end of 
April. A British military expert, writing 
for the London Times, declared, in the 
teeth of the rigid British censorship, about 
two weeks ago, that Great Britain had as 
well realize the bitter truth that both the 
fall and spring campaigns were utter fail- 
ures, and that up to now the Germans are 

(51) 



Ger mania Defender 

the victors. Immediately after the inef- 
fectual British attempts in April, the Lon- 
don Times strongly denounced Lord 
Kitchener's conduct of the war, and got 
itself and its owner indicted by way of 
political reprisal on the part of the then 
British Government. Nevertheless, its 
tremendous denunciation bore fruit; the 
British cabinet was broken to pieces, which 
every student of British politics under- 
stands constitutes confession of failure. 
Lord Kitchener was deprived of all juris- 
diction over the matter of munitions and 
supplies, and new men were brought into 
the cabinet, representative of all factions 
in the Government. Is a ministry made 
up of discordant elements, that never 
heretofore consorted with each other ex- 
cept in opposition, better calculated to 
formulate and carry out for the future a 
program efficient to destroy Germany 
than was the late liberal cabinet, which 
from the beginning of the war was vested 
with powers as absolute as those of a dic- 
tator, and given the entire undepleted re- 
sources of the country to draw upon at 
discretion? The question would seem to 
answer itself, and to me the most distinct 
sign of coming breakdown, foreshadowing 
a search for a soft spot to fall on, was the 
silly propagandum started by Chancellor 
Lloyd-George, who, like our Mr. Bryan, 

(52) 



Ger mania Defender 

for years has shown a tendency toward 
prohibition, laying all the trouble at the 
doors of that part of the British public 
that drank liquor. 

It now remains to be seen whether the 
coalition cabinet can achieve better results. 
If within the next ninety days it makes no 
better progress than was made by its pre- 
decessor, either on the western line or at 
the Dardanelles, it too must fall. Who will 
take its place, with the future successful 
conduct of the war as its program? The 
liberal cabinet having failed, and the coali- 
tion cabinet built up out of all parties hav- 
ing failed, what political organization in 
England will be willing to take charge of 
the further conduct of the war, at a time 
when the great bulk of the national re- 
sources already has been impounded and 
futilely expended? 

Personally, I doubt if the English, who 
would not sacrifice even their liquor on the 
altar of war, will stand for conscription; 
nor do I believe any ministry can survive 
an effort to enforce conscription adequate 
to raise an army of continental propor- 
tions. 

Yet, for Great Britain it must ere long- 
be conscription, peace or disaster. 



(53) 



Germania Defender 
CfflUMPlTER HUE 



We were informed at the outset of the 
war that the allied program contemplated 
that Great Britain, France and Belgium 
would engage and hold on the western 
German frontier so large a proportion of 
the German forces as to render it easy 
for Russia to penetrate Germany from the 
east. The western allies were to he the 
anvil and Russia the hammer between 
which the German power should be broken. 
Russia was to play the active part and 
stab straight at the heart of the country. 
Calculations were made concerning the 
short distance from the Russian frontier to 
Berlin, and so many days allowed for the 
trip, based on the marching capacity of a 
Russian soldier. Russia did not fail to es- 
say the role assigned her. Russian troops 
crossed the border of East Prussia near 
Stalluponen on August 17, pursuing their 
preferred program of rapine and destruc- 
tion against the persons and property of 
the civilian population. On August 27-31 
Von Hindenburg literally destroyed that 
army; it became delenda — absolutely ex- 
tinct. And then instantly the Germans car- 

(54) 



Ger mania Defender 

ried the battle into their enemy's country by 
invading Poland. It is impossible within 
reasonable limits to follow the tide of bat- 
tle as it has ebbed and flowed on that front 
since that time. Time and again the Rus- 
sians have essayed an offensive, penetrat- 
ing a few miles into the far extended ter- 
ritory of East Prussia, and on each oc- 
casion they have been hurled back with 
losses of astounding magnitude. Mean- 
time the Germans have maintained an ad- 
vance well forward upon the line to War- 
saw and the utmost exertions of the Rus- 
sians have not been able to dislodge them. 
In the southeast the invasion of Aus- 
tria by Russia seemed promising, the 
Russians having overrun the outlying 
province of Galicia and forced their line 
forward to the Carpathian mountains, 
bordering Hungary. The capture of Prze- 
mysl on March 22 was proclaimed a sec- 
ond Sedan in favor of Russia, and yet to- 
day it is back in Austria's hands, and the 
entire campaign of Russia in Galicia has 
all gone to water. The Russian move- 
ment now is rapid retrograde, and its bat- 
tles are rear guard actions on the outer 
fringe of the Austrian possessions. 

As to Germany, there is not today a 
Russian soldier on her soil except as a 
prisoner of war; of them there are ap- 
proximately a million. Moreover, Ger- 

(55) 



Germania Defender 

many is conducting a remarkable stab at 
Russia, of which as yet we hear little, but 
which is highly important, and singularly 
illustrates the utter failure of the Russian 
offensive, namely, the advance of a Ger- 
man army in a northeasterly direction from 
East Prussia, on Petrograd, which has 
now covered about one-third the distance. 
is approaching the important seaport of 
Riga, on the Baltic Sea, and is assured an 
experience unlike that of Napoleon's by 
preserving communications westward to 
the Baltic, where it is supported by Ger- 
man naval forces; the joint movement In- 
sea and land being practicable all the way 
to the goal, Russia's capital. 

Germany, exclusive of Austria, alone 
captured three hundred thousand Russian 
prisoners during the month of May. 

To offset the disasters of Russia no 
argument is offered except the statement 
that as yet she has employed only a frac- 
tion of her men capable of military service. 
If the mere proprietorship of men in vast 
numbers were all that is required to or- 
ganize armies and accomplish victories, 
then it must be conceded that at last Rus- 
sia might win; that such, however, is not 
the case seems adequately illustrated by 
Russia's fate not only in her late war with 
Japan, but in all her wars in modern his- 

(56) 



G e it mania Defender 



tory. It was understood that the best re- 
sult for Russia realized out of her Jap- 
anese experience lay in the reorganization 
of her army. It is now safe to say that 
whatever benefit she gained from that 
source has been lost in the first ten months 
of her hostilities with Germany and Aus- 
tria. Her first line, consisting of her 
regular army of trained troops, undoubt- 
edly is practically destroyed. It is hard 
to find any explanation for the unprece- 
dented number of Russian prisoners that 
are being taken by the Germans, amount- 
ing in the month of May to an average of 
ten thousand per da} r , on any other theory 
than that thev are not only untrained sol- 
diers, but unwilling fighters. Moreover, 
it is notorious and the subject of daily 
comment that the Russian supply of arms 
and ammunition is now utterly inadequate 
for the magnitude of her undertaking, and 
the extent to which she can produce both 
sets a limitation upon the number of men 
that she can employ in warfare. Russia 
has limited access to the United States for 
the replenishment of her war supplies. Ja- 
pan is and for months has been furnishing 
Russia what can be spared and it is obvious 
that the supply from that source is not 
adequate. What reasonable likelihood is 
there that Russia any more than her al- 
lies will grow stronger rather than weaker 

(57) 



G F. B M a N i a 1) E r r N D E R 



as time goes by1 In Russia, too, they 
have sought to trace their inability ti^ han- 
dle the Germans, to the use of alcohol, It 
was claimed that vodka was the curse of 
the Russian army and people. Vodka was 
abolished in the first weeks of the war, 
but apparently it makes little difference 
whether the Russian soldier be drunk or 
sober as regards victory for the Russians 
over the Germans. 

And let it be remembered that Rus- 
sia lias hardly yet encountered the (Ger- 
man defensive. The nature of trench war- 
fare is such that an army on the defensive 
has at least three times the strength of 
that same army on the offensive. Should 
the Russians ever entirely check the Ger- 
iiinii offensive, they will then have their 
labor multiplied, for there will then in- 
stantly arise, as on the line of the Aisne 
in France last September, a fortified line 
oi 1 entrenchments from the Baltic, along 
the thousand miles o( existing battle front, 
to Bukowina, in the southeast corner oi' 
Austria. Is it to be imagined that the 
Russian moujik will develop any better 
capacity for negotiating such defenses 
than has been displayed against the west- 
ern line by the best trained troops of 
France and England? 



(5S) 



(', E B M a N I a I) J J E N D E B 

C1HAIPTEE IV 
TUd<b Affinray all (Mho D&irdlsiiBifcE 



History never accused the private 
Turkish soldier of being a poor fighter. 
They many times have lost their ivars on 
account of pour organization and poor 
ficering. But with the advent of tl 
young Turks to power some years ago, 
Turkey employed the assistance of* Ger- 
man army officers, and their late per- 
formance on the Gallipoli Peninsular as 
compared with their record in the war 
with Greece, and in the late war with the 
Balkan States, indicates their improve- 
ment, especially when actually directed 
and generalled by German officers. The 
allies first sent against the Dardanelles 
probably the most powerful battle fleet 
that ever went into action. The net result 
of weeks of effort was the absolute loss 
of four capital ships of war and severe 
damage, the extent of which was never dis- 
closed, to most of the remainder* The en- 
tire i'leet hauled off and the effort for the 
time being was ahandoned. Winston 
Churchill's removal from the head of the 
British Admiralty signified the degree of 
this disaster, viewed from the British 
standpoint. Almost two months ago the 

(59) 



(t E K M A N I A D E F E NDEK 



assault was renewed bv a reinforced fleet, 
operating in connection with land forces; 
week after week has passed, two more 
British battleships of the first class have 
gone down, the death list is appalling and 
the allies are vet merely hanging to the 
toe of the 200-mile-long peninsular. 
The Turks are able to draw on their en- 
tire country lying in the rear of the penin- 
sular for troops and supplies. The diffi- 
culties of transporting supplies for the al- 
lies are tremendous. Every man and 
every pound of ammunition and supplies 
must be brought by ships entirely across 
the Mediterranean, and if not thence, then 
all the way from France and England. 
Success for the allies in this undertaking 
would be serious, if not fatal, to the Ger- 
mans, but when the Allies after twice hav- 
ing measured the difficulties of their task, 
spend in their second effort eight weeks 
of time, and then settle down to trench 
warfare almost two hundred miles from 
their goal, it would seem to the impartial 
observer that their road to Constantinople 
is rather effectually closed. 



(60) 



(lERMANI A 1) E F E N D E a 



ceiafteir v 

Tib© SofhsoaifttoiiQ ®na ftDa© EMii&nn H&ffl® 

The Italian situation merits but short 
consideration. The end of the fourth 
week of their operations has come. They 
of course have known from the start what 
they intended to do and were in a position 
to seize the hour which seemed to them 
most promising for entrance into the fray. 
They have employed the last year buying 
supplies in the United States, calling their 
reserves to the colors, training new troops 
and making their plans for invasion of 
Austria. The Germans accomplished 
more in the first four days than the 
Italians have accomplished in their first 
four weeks of war. They have taken a 
number of small unfortified towns and 
villages along the Austrian frontier, none 
of which, so far as can be determined from 
an ordinary map, is more than twenty 
miles inside the Austrian frontier. Their 
formal daily announcements, like those of 
Great Britain and France, instead of 
heralding to the world the overwhelming 
strides of a victorious host, constantly 
reiterate admiration for their own success 
in repelling the assaults of their ene- 

(61) 



Ger mania Defender 

mies. Unless I greatly mistake my guess, 
the Italians are soon to receive the bene- 
fit of a little German attention. So 
far the Teutonic allies have been content 
to hold the line of fortified positions 
perched high upon the Alps and domi- 
nating the Alpine Passes. They can 
safely permit Italy to rage around the 
foot of this mighty barrier and in the 
small valleys that lie to the south. The 
surrender of Trieste itself would repre- 
sent no great disaster. That, however, is 
not likely to occur and the chances are 
good that when the Russians have been 
disposed of in Galicia, and possibly be- 
fore, Italy will awaken some morning and 
find the allied German troops have en- 
tered through Trentino and are battering 
at the doors of Florence, Milan and 
Venice, and Italy's army of invasion in 
Austria thereby cut off from their com- 
munications and completely surrounded. 

I am not emulous to earn the hazard- 
ous reputation of a prophet, but the very 
map indicates as obvious this strategy for 
the Germans. I think it matters little, 
however, whether they ever assume the of- 
fensive against Italy, whose movements 
during the last four weeks indicate it to 
be a negligible factor. A few divisions 
can hold the line of the Alps indefinitely, 

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German i a Defender 

and the Teutons can safely leave Italy to 
pound itself to pieces against them. 

I submit the above summary of the 
present situation of the great European 
war with utmost diffidence, but I be- 
lieve it to be substantially a correct analy- 
sis of the situation. If so, the German 
allies, completely surrounded and raged at 
by practically the whole of Europe and a 
large part of Africa and Asia, supported 
as to supplies by the United States, is in 
a military way unbeatable. It has been 
the most colossal spectacle of military 
prowess ever exhibited by any nation in 
the history of the world, surpassing even 
the campaigns of Frederick the Great, 
when in a similar case five allied countries 
of Europe invaded Prussia each spring 
for five years with five several armies, en- 
tering Prussia from different directions, 
only to be beaten in detail and thrown 
back by the great Prussian as rapidly as 
he could march from one encounter to the 
next, meeting and defeating in almost 
every instance superior numbers. 

Pride of race and country in any man 
at any time, is patriotism, and therefore 
a virtue. Much along this line, in view 
of what is happening in Europe, superb 
and without parallel, may hereafter be 

(63) 



Geiimania Defender 

pardoned without discrimination, not only 
to the Germans, but to the British, Bel- 
gians and French. My eyes have been 
new opened. In this our land and time 
of sissies and suffragettes, prohibition, 
poppycock and peace at any price con- 
sistent with platitudes, I long ago con- 
cluded that the age of heroic men had 
passed. I so often have heard it an- 
nounced in these latter years from high 
quarters that a whole skin is worth a 
hundred halos; that no American had any 

• 

rights that he might require a Mexican 
brigand or other human hyena to respect; 
that "service/' although regarded with 
contempt by its beneficiaries and patient 
sufferance of kicks from whatever source 
administered beneath the coat-tails of our 
country, were the real true tests of na- 
tional dignity, that I had begun to 
wonder whether my ancient admiration 
for George Washington, Andrew Jack- 
son, Sam Houston, Robert E. Lee and 
Stonewall Jackson were not possibly an 
indictable offense before a federal grand 
jury, and to believe that the day of real 
men, without mush in their mouths, or 
water in their veins, was passed and gone 
forever. 

But for the last ten months through the 
smoky haze that overhangs sixteen hun- 
dred miles of battle line, three thousand 

(64) 



Germania Defender 

miles away across the ocean, I have dis- 
cerned forms striving, struggling and dy- 
ing, more like demigods than men — mil- 
lions of them, for home and country, doing 
deeds on earth, in air, by sea and under- 
neath the depths of ocean, the like of which 
never before was witnessed in all the his- 
tory of mankind; and when I recall that 
it is from precisely those great races that 
the fabric of American citizenship is 
formed, I know, regardless of all the pif- 
fle now and for so long paramounted to 
the surface of American political affairs, 
that when our hour comes, as come it sure- 
ly will, the American in arms, all crippled 
and hampered as he may be by the folly 
of unforesight on the part of his un- 
practical government, will not fail his 
country. 



(65) 



©ElMASM¥ g ENGLAND AWB Til 

;d states 






Ana Hfflid!©p<BiBidl@iiD<5© W)m^ M*Msf( 
Sa<gnnterlbi 



Jm% S 9 JLtlJ 



Ger mania Defender 

©EIMAIMY, EMSLAOT AM© TIE 
GJMHTE© STATES 

At this hour, in the midst of events 
that are making earth tremble, we come 
to celebrate the anniversary of American 
independence. It is well. 

One hundred and thirty-nine years ago 
yesterday the fathers of our country de- 
nounced a tyranny which the souls of self- 
respecting men could not longer endure, 
and pledging to each other their lives, 
their fortunes and their sacred honor, 
solemn gages of a purpose no human pow- 
er could balk, founded the nation which 
has become our heritage. 

Sternly in blood and by battle they 
established it, and sternly in blood and b}^ 
battle it since has been maintained; and 
the price the founders offered to pay and 
paid that our country might be born, is 
none too dear for us to pay, if need be, that 
it, with all the rights and dignities that 
properly pertain to a mighty people, shall 
be preserved. 

My friends, regarding what I am 
now about to say, please understand that 
I condemn the role of a firebrand; I pur- 
pose, however, to submit to the test of 
candid analysis, the situation of this coun- 

(69) 



Ger mania Defender 

try as regards certain of its foreign rela- 
tions. 

As matters stand today, no American 
ship, loaded with an American cargo, can 
reach the end of its journey without the 
consent of Great Britain. Ships flying 
the American flag destined to neutral 
European ports, and ships under the same 
flag destined to German ports, but car- 
rying non-contraband of war, such as 
Texas cotton, for the use of civilian popu- 
lations, as well as foreign ships flying the 
flags of neutrals but laden with American 
cargoes of such merchandise, have been 
and are being waylaid upon the high seas 
by British ships of war, dragged into 
British ports, detained indefinitely and 
they and their cargoes disposed of by 
prize courts, not according to rules of war 
heretofore laid down for the government 
of nations, but according to ex parte man- 
dates issued by the British ministers as 
Orders in Council, to suit the military in- 
terests of Great Britain. 

American independence and freedom 
relate not alone to our domestic affairs; 
the words are mockeries and the results 
as barren as Dead Sea fruit unless they 
apply to our commerce, and our people 
throughout the earth. If we are to main- 
tain the independence of this country, any 
tyranny which, under the protection of 

(70) 



Gee mania Defender 

overwhelming naval force, at its own will 
makes or breaks the law upon the seas, 
must be resisted, and if necessary the 
whole power of this mighty country must 
be exerted to destroy it. Otherwise to what 
purpose did our country fight in 1812? 

£uas§@§ S@r ffi© Wur @S 1812a sis IDtesarnlM 
by W@©d!r@w Wifc@na g £@isita§(l©dl W5(Hh 

In this connection, I desire to quote out 
of the striking description of the causes 
leading up to the war of 1812, between the 
United States and Great Britain, certain 
words from "A History of the American 
People,'' by Woodrow Wilson. Referring 
to the Napoleonic wars, the history says: 

"England's only mastery was on the 
seas. If she could not cut off the con- 
quering Corsican's resources there she 
could not hope to check him at all. * * * 
But on land, apparently, the Corsi- 
can could not be beaten. England 
determined that at least his coast should be 
shut up and the trade of his allied and sub- 
ject states destroyed; and since she could 
not make an actual blockade of all Europe, 
she resolved to make a paper blockade, 
and enforce it as she might by captures at 
sea. By a series of Orders in Council 

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Gehmania Defender 

(May, 1806- April, 1809) she virtually 
declared every port of Europe and the 
Indies closed against neutral trade. Na- 
poleon answered with a series of decrees 
(November, 1807- August, 1810) which 
closed every English port also, so far as 
such cruisers as France had left could close 
them, or seizure in French ports make the 
orders good. * * * 

4 'America was not the special target of 
these extraordinary measures. They were 
simply unprecedented acts of war in a 
struggle which had at last transcended 
every rule and standard. But America's 
trade was likely to be cut away at the 
roots as effectually as if all Europe had 
declared war against her. Moreover she 
was helpless. Mr. Jefferson had brought 
a party to power which had dismantled the 
navy which the Federalists had begun. 
The few ships that remained were tied up 
at the docks out of repair, out of commis- 
sion, or lacking crews and equipment. 
English cruisers overhauled American 
merchantmen when and where they 
pleased, looked into their manifests and 
bills of lading, forbade them their voyage 
if they chose and took their seamen off to 
serve in their own crews." 

Commenting on the policy of Presi- 
dent Jefferson in this crisis, the distin- 
guished author remarks that in the view 

(72) 



G E B M A N I A D E F E X I) E R 



of Mr. Jefferson, "if American seamen 
were not safe against attack at sea, it was 
best that they should stay in port. * * * 
He tried negotiations with England 
* * * for many weary months. * * * At 
last driven to retaliation but unalterably 
opposed to war, he recommended an em- 
bargo * * * an embargo bill became law 
which absolutely prohibited foreign com- 
merce * * * closed the ports against all 
nations, and even against the exit of 
American ships. * * * Such an experi- 
ment in retaliation, cried Josiah Quincy, 
of Massachusetts, 'had never before en- 
tered into the human imagination; there is 
nothing like it in the narratives of history 
or in the tales of fiction.' * * * 'My prin- 
ciple," said the president, 'is that the con- 
venience of our citizens shall yield reason- 
ably and their tastes greatly to the im- 
portance of giving the present experiment 
so fair a trial that on future occasions our 
legislators may know with certainty how 
far they may count on it as an engine for 
national purposes,' as a substitute for 
war" — and the great author adds laconi- 
cally, "he had his way to the utmost." * * * 
The eminent historian then describes 
the effect on this country of the ces- 
sation of international commerce, saying: 
"America's trade was ruined, ships rotted 
at the wharves — the ships which had but 

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Ger mania Defender 

yesterday carried commerce to the world. 
Nothing would sell any more at its old 
price. * * * It was mere bankruptcy for 
the whole country." 

Do you know the light in which Author 
Wilson considered the British Orders in 
Council of 1806-09? Let him reply: 

"Napoleon's decree, like the English 
Orders in Council, had been nothing less 
than acts of war against the United States 
from the first, though not primarily aimed 
at her, and would at any time have justi- 
fied a declaration of hostilities." (Vol. 3, 
page 207.) 

Fellow Citizens: If these acts of 
Great Britain were acts of war in 1807, 
are similar acts today less so? 

I quote these words, not as incitement 
to trouble, but to point certain morals; 
first, that for all our observance of this 
day, our boasted freedom is in substance 
false and a joke, unless that freedom per- 
tains to American ships and American 
cargoes on every sea of the globe ; second, 
that a weak and spineless foreign policy 
does not and never did avert war, but to 
the contrary conduces to it, and third, that 
such policies come home at last with crush- 
ing force against the prosperity and hap- 
piness of the people. 

(74) 



Ger mania Defender 

(S(£c°ifi]aiiiiDy D g ®pp@gnilc@iiD to British ©w<&w° 
toirdlslhnp aft Sea 

Germany years ago protested the as- 
sumption by Great Britain that she of 
right should overlord the sea; and, guided 
by the great hand of William II, the Ger- 
mans for the past twenty-five years have 
borne the burden of an effort to finance 
a navy adequate, if required, to nullify 
that claim. Here in a word is seen the 
seed of the present war as between Ger- 
many and Great Britain. Had Germany 
been willing to allow Great Britain un- 
disputed supremacy at sea, Great Britain 
would never have adhered to the triple 
entente. In the regard mentioned, Ger- 
many was fighting not only for her own 
hand commercially, but incidentally for 
the benefit of the United States, and every 
other nation whose sea-borne commerce, in 
time of war, just as now, stood liable to 
be, and is now being, detained or destroyed 
to whatever extent the British sea-lords 
elect. 

Great Britain, at all times prior to the 
war, consented to the age-old rule of in- 
ternational law that merchandise cargoes 
might be delivered, regardless of war, in 
the absence of absolute blockade, but as 
soon as the exigencies of war dictate, re- 
peats precisely the tactics adopted by her 

(75) 



Germania Defender 

in the Napoleonic wars, and now ruth- 
lessly violates these same laws to the ut- 
ter destruction of American trade with 
Germany, and the serious impairment of 
our trade with all other European coun- 
tries, save alone Great Britain and her 
allies. What her violation of the law is 
costing the United States is bej r ond com- 
putation, but the single item represented 
by the disparity in American exports to 
Germany for the first eight months of the 
current fiscal year (ending March 31, 
1915) , compared with our exports to Ger- 
many for the year ending June 30, 1914, 
is a pretty good illustration. The exports 
to Germany last year were $344,794,276; 
so far this year, including July, 1914 (the 
month prior to the war), they amount to 
$^13,876,046, and the difference, $330,918,- 
230, represents in substantial part the loss 
to the American people up to the date men- 
tioned, in this single case, inflicted by 
Great Britain's unlawful practice. The 
item of loss to Texas in the cessation of 
cotton exports and the depreciated price 
for cotton ran into scores of millions of 
dollars in the first few months of the war. 
Germany has long foreseen the likeli- 
hood of this situation. It was for this 
that she began the construction of battle- 
ships. But there apparently she had en- 
tered upon a hopeless contest. British 

(76) 



G e r m a n i a Defender 

naval policy far antedates even the birth of 
the German empire ; and when subsequent 
to the accession of William II, Germany 
began to take cognizance of the world's sit- 
ation at sea, the British lead in naval con- 
struction apparently was insuperable, and 
for each new ship of war laid down by 
Germany, Great Britain laid down two. 

EcDders (tiki© Bwhmmrm® 

And then, my friends, the inventions 
of the Holland and Lake types of sub- 
marines, showed the world the way out 
from the perpetual menace so long im- 
posed by Great Britain upon the seas. 

The point was simply this: That 
British naval supremacy in the ordinary 
types of ships of war probably could 
never be overtaken, but as regarded the 
construction of submersible ships, Ger- 
many and all the balance of the world had 
an even break with Great Britain ; and the 
submersible probably held the master 
hand over ships that float only on the sur- 
face. 

It is apparent that the Germans saw 
completely the possibilities of the sub- 
marine. It was obvious that the old sys- 
tem of absolute blockade, conducted with 
the view of starving to death an enemy, 
effective only by ships lying close in to an 

(77) 



It e kmania Defends b 

enemy port, could never again be success- 
fully practiced against a country that 
owned and held in its harbors submarines. 

•many built submarines, and in that 

ment freed herself and incidentally 
freed the commerce of the United States 
to Germany from half the tyranny of 

eat Britain's overwhelming sea power: 
provided, however, that the British ob- 
served the rule of sea law. which, in the 
absence o1i absolute blockade, forbids and 
renders piratical captures on the high seas 
of merchant ships carrying non-contra- 
band destined to the ports of an enemy. 
If the German government, familiar with 
British history and policy, ever mistru< 
that Great Britain, with its superior sea- 

• er. would in fact observe the law 
whenever it became to its interest to 
regard it. they had a right to expect, and 
1 am sure, did expect, that if the hour 
anticipated should come that Great Brit- 
ain in time oi war. forced by the pv 
in ail Gei man ports : - 2S, to 

abandon absolute blockade, should resort 
to legal piracy on the open seas i gainst 
American shipping to Germany. I -. 

1807, had a right to ox- 

ct in si lsi that the United St:. 

aid firmly ass and maintain her 
a neutral to the freedom of the 
amst > oec.es ol piracy. 



Gekmania Defender 

whether practiced under the black flag or 
under the Royal George of Great Britain. 

TIkg Waur ®<g<et£irg 

War having broken out August -i, 1914, 
England mobilized its fleet in the North 
Sea, and on September 22 the German 
submarine U-9, commanded by Captain 
Otto Weddigen, during the space of a few 
hours torpedoed and sank the three great 
British cruisers, Hogue, Cressy and 
Aboukir, with a loss of 1,133 men. Here 
was farewell forever to the idea of a close 
blockade against German ports, and if the 
fabric of international law held intact, the 
door was bound to remain open for the 
passage of neutral merchant ships with 
American cargoes to German ports, and 
the German people would never know the 
pangs of hunger however long the war 
continued, so Ions; as thev had monev with 
which to buy in America. 

IBT^gnkdl^wifii ©if ftlh® Ls^ 

Did the law of nations hold? Listen: 
Great Britain did not scruple to violate 
the law, but sought to effect the violation 
by evasion. She arbitrarily extended the 
list of articles deemed by her contraband 
of war. to include foodstuffs and even 

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Germania Defender 

cotton (which by the 26th article of the 
convention of 1908-09 was expressly ex- 
empted from liability ever to be declared 
contraband) , destined from the United 
States to German ports or even to ports 
of neutral countries where merchandise 
might be trans-shipped to Germany, and 
allowed herself the liberty to seize where- 
ever found American ships with all such 
cargoes so destined. 

However, these acts may be glossed 
over, or whatever cash indemnities Great 
Britain from time to time may pay to 
American shippers and shipowners, this 
practice is ruinous to American trade with 
every European country except the Al- 
lies; it makes England dictator over and 
sole broker for American sea trade to 
Europe, it is piracy and as declared by 
Woodrow Wilson regarding her similar 
practice in the time of Napoleon, is an act 
of war against the United States. 

What now was the situation of Ger- 
many? She had played her part, she had 
observed the law; and she had drawn the 
teeth of the British navy, provided the 
United States stood firmly on the law of 
nations and promptly protected herself 
and her lawful trade to Germany from 
British spoliation. Then the finger of 
fate pointed to us, and the hour had come 
for the United States to act. Our prob- 

(80) 



Geemania Defender 

lem was identical with that presented to 
Presidents Jefferson and Madison from 
1807 to 1812, and our historians have 
recorded that weak dalliance with the situ- 
ation on that occasion brought us first to 
ruin and finally to war. 

My friends, as a loyal American citi- 
zen, I do not care to criticize our state 
department regarding foreign affairs, at 
a critical moment ; I can only say that the 
matters above referred to became long ago 
and still are the subject of "negotiations" 
between our government and the govern- 
ment of Great Britain, and that so far 
Great Britain has not yielded an inch con- 
cerning its unlawful practice. 

But in the meantime, what of Ger- 
many? Should Great Britain break the 
law and go scot-free and Germany yet be 
bound? Germany's next step was as 
natural as the falling of leaves in autumn : 
She surrounded the British Isles with 
submarines, and notified the world in sub- 
stance that beginning February 18, 1915, 
the entire sea area around the British 
Isles would become a war zone, to be en- 
tered, like war zones ashore, by neutrals or 
others at their peril. Germany had the 
right at law by blockade with submarines 
or other ships of war, to exclude all ships 
from British ports, but the idea involved 
in her notice that in maintaining such 

(81) 



Ger mania Defender 

blockade exclusively by the use of sub- 
marines, she might not be able always to 
observe the rule, made before submarines 
were invented, that merchant ships of 
enemies or neutrals attempting to enter 
blockaded ports not armed nor resisting, 
nor attempting flight, might not be sunk, 
but only seized, or if by reason of necessity 
sunk, not until crews and passengers were 
taken off, was squarely in the face of pre- 
existing laws and international conven- 
tions. 

But such invariable observance of the 
law, made blockade by submarines ex- 
tremely difficult, because the submarine 
has no facilities for saving crews or pas- 
sengers; nevertheless, in each case, where 
German submarines failed to provide for 
the escape of crews, and in most instances 
they have done so, British cries for ven- 
geance rent the firmament. 

Here now was a remarkable situation: 
Great Britain freely violating the vital 
provisions of international law at every 
point where violation served her purpose, 
but crying aloud to Heaven against the 
Germans as regarded the one point, where 
out of disabilities adhering to the very 
nature of submarines, they could not keep 
the law. 

And then, my friends, Great Britain 
put herself beyond the pale: She struck 

(82) 



G e r m a n i a Defender 

down, so far as her ships were concerned, 
any further right to demand or expect that 
German submarines should regard the 
humane rules concerning visit and search, 
by ordering all British merchant ships, in 
defiance of the law that governs them, to 
ram wherever encountered and sink all 
German submarines — and offered a prize 
to be paid in cash to the captain and crew 
of any British merchantman succeeding in 
any such unlawful effort, and as pub- 
lished in one case has paid this price of 
blood. Captain Otto Weddigen, his crew 
and the submarine U-29, to the command 
of which Captain Weddigen, after his re- 
markable achievement in the North Sea, 
had been assigned, were destroyed appar- 
ently in just such manner by a British 
merchant ship flying a Swedish flag. 



In that moment to the German sub- 
marine commander every merchantman 
became a potential ship of war, and pre- 
cisely for this reason the Lusitania with 
her crew and passengers went to her doom. 
The sinking of that royal ship, the original 
construction of which was financed by the 
British government, which was listed as 
subject to duty as an auxiliary cruiser in 

(83) 



Ger mania Defender 

the British navy and which at the time of 
her loss was heavily freighted with ammu- 
nition for the British army, with her car- 
go was no offense before the law — the 
world has concerned itself only as regards 
its crew and passengers. But terrible and 
deplorable as was the act that destroyed 
them, the historian of the future, writing 
the story of this awful period, dare not 
rest his gaze looking into the heart of all 
these things, until it travel back to the 
hour when Great Britain, its power to close 
up German ports by lawful means baffled, 
broke the law and sought to starve the en- 
tire German nation by acts on the high 
seas against neutral trade amounting to 
legal piracy; broke the law by ordering 
merchant ships, if they had good chance, 
to suddenly assume work of destruction 
allowed only to warships, and not resting 
on the mere loyalty of British seamen, 
bribed their cupidity to do the work of 
death with deception and subterfuge, by 
offering dirty prizes of cash. In that hour 
and by that order she signed the warrant 
that sent the crew and passengers of the 
Lusitania, as well as those lost on every 
other ship since that time that has been 
sunk without notice, to their graves be- 
neath the sea. 

(84) 



Ger mania Defender 



Cfeirnratm^ © W@llaftn<s>iJQ ©2 Itota a iii]§iitfi©iBigiI] 

Law 

The offenses of Germany against in- 
ternational law as regards the United 
States, unlike those of Great Britain, have 
arisen solely from the difficulties of main- 
taining blockade by submarines, except in 
the case of the destruction at sea of the 
American ship, Frye, and her cargo of 
wheat, which occurred without loss of life, 
and as regards which Germany has frank- 
ly assumed responsibility, her act appar- 
ently being based on a misunderstanding 
by the commander of her cruiser of the 
rules of international law. She is offering 
to pay a suitable indemnity and there is 
no likelihood of a similar case occurring. 
The torpedoing of the Nebraskan and 
Gulf light occurred in the war zone and ap- 
parently represents acts in pursuance of an 
effort to establish there a condition of im- 
minent danger, adequate to dissuade all 
neutrals from entering British waters and 
ports. 

The German attitude is that to over- 
come the effect of Great Britain's viola- 
tion of the law, she, too, is justified in 
setting up a new form of blockade; that 
having warned all neutrals and others out 
of the zone of danger, she has a right to 
assume that every ship now found in that 

(85) 



G E R M A N I A 1)E F E NDEB 



area, regardless of her colors, concerning 
which British ships practice deception, be- 
longs to her enemy, is affected with a 
military character, and may be attacked 
with or without notice. Established in- 
ternational law, however, makes no more 
allowance for Germany's novel form of re- 
taliatory submarine blockade than it does 
for England's system of blockade by seiz- 
ures at sea, and the hard case of Germany 
lies in the fact that less concern of course 
can be felt regarding the multiplied mil- 
lions of dollars of property damage will- 
fully inflicted on us by Great Britain, than 
is felt concerning the loss on occasions of 
American lives, to protect whom would 
necessarily require the adoption of meas- 
ures by Germany, which if generally prac- 
ticed, might be fatal to her own submarines 
and necessitate the abandonment by her of 
her retaliatory blockade. 

Entire relief concerning this whole 
situation is in the hands of the United 
States; if we stand sternly on our right 
as against Great Britain, to enter German 
ports in the absence of absolute blockade, 
and that Great Britain shall strike from 
her list of contraband all articles of mer- 
chandise, including foodstuffs and cotton, 
not heretofore subject to such classifica- 
tion, the purpose of Germany's submarine 
blockade will have been accomplished, and 

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G e r m a n i a Defender 

in such case she can cheerfully restrict the 
operations of her submarines to an of f en- 
sive against the enemy ships of war. 

Tlfee "M(bw D(g(£kraft3®nn ©f? IM@p@iiiidl@ffii<£<B 

But out of all these things, fellow-citi- 
zens, the time has come for America to 
issue a new declaration of independence — 
in behalf of the freedom of the seas, the 
free and unobstructed movement of all 
neutral ships of commerce, in peace or war, 
whithersoever they list to go, for the en- 
tire abolition of the old savage rules of 
blockade, and the abandonment forever of 
the rights of search, seizure, detention or 
destruction of merchant ships. Here at 
once, as regards neutral nations, the rigors 
of war would be relieved, and the likeli- 
hood of war itself half abolished. 

There is no longer any reason in the 
world, and all logic is against it, why in 
time of war belligerents should define the 
rights of neutrals; to the contrary, it is 
better for the universe, and the neutral 
powers in concert can make such a de- 
cision stick, that they shall set limitations 
upon interference with their affairs by bel- 
ligerents, thus modifying and more nearly 
restricting to the belligerents themselves, 
the damnifying influence of war. 

These things must come, and the Unit- 
es?) 



Germania Defender 

ed States should lead the way. It is of no 
utility for us to sit with eyes fixed upon 
the stars, dreaming the age-old dream of 
universal peace, so long as other nations 
scorn our dreams and resort to war in an 
instant, wherever and whenever their in- 
terests or passions dictate. But the United 
States can, and it must, take up along 
practical lines the protection of the rights 
of neutral nations in time of war, and is 
now authorized to declare that since the 
laws of nations in the regards I have dis- 
cussed, have not been kept by belligerents, 
historically are violated by them whenever 
violation best serves their purpose, hence- 
forth the rights of neutrals shall be fixed 
by neutrals to the end that the seas be 
kept open and the suffering of the world 
in time of war minimized. 



Nor can this country longer abide a 
doctrine that if its citizens, domiciled in 
foreign countries, experience there chronic 
mistreatment and outrage, either under the 
sanction or because of the imbecility of the 
government of such foreign country, the 
only resort in their behalf shall be to notify 
such of them as survive and have the means 
for travel, to come, wrecked refugees, 

(88) 



Ger mania Defender 

limping, bleeding and despoiled, back to 
the land of their birth. 

On no such doctrine was national great- 
ness ever founded, and by no such doctrine 
can it be maintained. Such doctrine itself 
is an innovation on the laws of nations, and 
so far from reflecting kindness or human- 
ity, is cruel, callous and cold; so far from 
making for peace, it palters with danger, 
and by its weakness invites and in the im- 
mediate instance has produced such ampler 
exacerbations as probably make certain 
the very event it intended to avert. 

It matches precisely the doctrine of 
President Jefferson, described by Wood- 
row Wilson, regarding British outrages 
against American seamen, viz: that "if 
American seamen were not safe against at- 
tack at sea, it was best that they should 
remain in port," and the accompanying 
policy of 1807 that if England and France 
were determined to destroy our ships of 
commerce traveling to all ports of Europe, 
Congress should pass an embargo restrain- 
ing all our ships from sailing with cargoes 
to any port of Europe. As remarked by 
blunt old Josiah Quincy, such a policy 
"had never before entered into the human 
imagination ; there is nothing like it in the 
narratives of history, or in the tales of 
fiction." 

(89) 



Germania Defender 



IPrepnredli]ii@©g 

But, my fellow-citizens, these policies, 
or any milk and cider policy, or no policy 
at all, are to be expected of and, in fact, are 
alone consistent for a country, even of one 
hundred million brave people and immeas- 
urable wealth, if in this day and time, it 
makes no preparation to fight when need 
be. 

Bearing in mind our present condition 
in that regard, the American who demands 
of his government a robust foreign policy 
and who does not in the same breath plead 
for an adequate army and navy, sins 
against the country. 

Tib© Minna SEcgqpnirdjdl if®)! 3 ftDa© Bfainr 

I long to behold arise in our public life 
some great figure, a man of utter cour- 
age, no dreamer nor sentimentalist, but a 
man who can look at the sun without blink- 
ing, no flatterer of voters, nor bender to 
"isms" of the hour, but a Man, not only 
undeluded but defiant of Delusion, here 
and everywhere; with a hand of steel, a 
mind able to stand firm alone, and a soul 
of majesty utterly above the political 
twaddle of these times who can take hold 
on the common sense of this country, and 
supported by the aroused and enlightened 

(90) 



Gehmania D e f e n d e b 

judgment of a people, at last awakened to 
the stern and dangerous realities of this 
fateful hour, conduct it to stable prosper- 
ity at home, and power and dignity and 
security, second to those of no other nation 
on earth, abroad. 



(91) 



)impptann<Bcnltffliry ft© Mb® Himdte[p®iBidl®i5i<£© 



(JJg% O b 3LDli) 



Germania Defender 



In a speech delivered by me before the 
Houston Saengerbund, on July 5, I made 
the statement that "Great Britain had not 
scrupled to violate the law (concerning 
captures at sea) , but sought to effect the 
violation by evasion; she arbitrarily ex- 
tended the list of articles deemed by her 
contraband of war to include foodstuffs, 
and even cotton." In conversation a friend 
lately challenged the correctness of this 
statement, saying that Great Britain had 
not "declared" cotton to be contraband of 
war. 

It is true that as regards cotton Great 
Britain has not followed the forms and 
ceremonies required by the Declaration of 
London for "declaring" an article contra- 
band, nor did I say that England had "de- 
clared" cotton to be contraband. What I 
said was that she "has extended the list of 
articles deemed by her contraband," and 
the treatment which she has accorded to 
cotton is such treatment as is exercised un- 
der the usages of war by belligerents only 
to articles that are contraband. 

At the conference of maritime powers 
called by Great Britain at London, which 
resulted in the agreement known as the 
"Declaration of London," signed Febru- 

(95) 



Germania Defend e b 

ary 20, 1909, the signatories agreed upon 
rules for the government of hlockade, and 
a list of articles to be considered as contra- 
band, conditional contraband and non-con- 
traband; at the special instance of Great 
Britain raw cotton headed the list of ar- 
ticles declared to be absolutely non-contra- 
band. 

In addition to the stipulation that raw 
cotton should never be declared contra- 
band, the following rules set forth in the 
Declaration of London concerning block- 
ade stood in the way of any attempt on 
the part of Great Britain to shut out 
American cotton from German ports or 
from the ports of neutral countries of Eu- 
rope : 

"Article 1. A blockade must not ex- 
tend beyond the ports and coasts belonging 
to or occupied by the enemy. 

"Article 2. In accordance with the 
Declaration of Paris of 1856, a blockade in 
order to be binding must be effective. That 
is to say, it must be maintained by a force 
sufficient really to prevent access to the 
enemy coast-line." 

(In connection with the above, please 
recall that the English declaration of 
blockade applied to all German ports, and 
yet that the German Baltic ports are as 
open now as at any time during peace, and 
are constantly being entered and departed 

(96) 



Germania Defender 



by ships and commerce of Holland, Den- 
mark, Norway and Sweden, creating pre- 
cisely that condition of prejudice against 
the United States and other countries here- 
tofore trading with Germany that the rule 
last above quoted was intended to pre- 
vent. ) 

"Article 17. Neutral vessels may not 
be captured for breach of blockade, except 
within the area of operations of the ships 
detailed to render blockade effective. 

"Article 18. The blockading forces 
must not bar access to neutral ports or 
coasts." 

Great Britain's actions have openly 
and notoriously violated every one of these 
provisions. She has not "declared" cotton 
to be contraband of war, but she has "treat- 
ed" it as contraband of war, save and ex- 
cept that whereas contraband of war, des- 
tined to enemy ports under blockade are 
subject to confiscation, she has intercept- 
ed, seized and carried into her ports car- 
goes of American cotton, whether destined 
to enemy ports or neutral ports, and then 
has undertaken by private negotiations 
with the shippers to satisfy them so as to 
prevent her action from becoming a casus 
belli as against the people of the United 
States. 

There has been observable for some 
time, however, in the Parliamentary de- 

(97) 



Geemania Defender 

bates in the English House of Commons, 
as reported by the London newspapers, a 
strong tendency to push the British minis- 
try into an open defiance of the Declara- 
tion of London by actually "declaring' ' 
cotton to be contraband of war.* The idea 
evidently is that if Americans continue to 
ship cotton even to Norway, Sweden, Hol- 
land or Denmark, from which it is possible 
to transship to Germany, the British will 
allow themselves the privilege to seize such 
cotton and condemn it without offering 
any compensation whatever to American 
shippers. 

I need hardly reiterate that either the 
course that is being pursued, or the course 
under discussion is an outrage against the 
American people, and is utterly destructive 
of the freedom of the seas, is calculated to 
cut the fair price of cotton to the pro- 
ducers half in two, and to impose on them 
an amount of woe and want and suffering 
compared with which the loss of life on the 
British steamer Lusitania, bad and sad as 
it was, will dwindle to a minor considera- 
tion. 

♦Cotton was formally declared contraband of war by 
Great Britain within six weeks after these lines were 
written. 



(98) 



AM ©FEN LETTEE TO T 
PEESIPEMT 



Ger mania Defender 

AM OPEN LETTER TO TEE 
JPEIESEPEMT 

Houston, Texas, August 3, 1915. 

Honorable Woodrow Wilson., 
President of the United States, 
Washington, D. C. 

Mr. President : — 

The basic principle of representative 
republican government is that public of- 
ficials who for the time being are charged 
with the powers of government, shall by 
their conduct reflect and perform the will 
of the units constituting the citizenry of the 
country. I am told that to a remarkable 
degree you, by various means, seek from 
time to time to ascertain the sentiments of 
the people, not as a matter of politics, but 
as a means to apply the principle above 
mentioned. Your gracious attitude in this 
regard gives to any well-intentioned citi- 
zen a warrant to draw his views on public 
questions to your notice. 

These reflections, sir, induce me to ad- 
dress you on a subject of greatest gravity, 
and with whatever power I can command 
to urge on you reasons and considerations 
which have induced in the minds of many 
of your fellow-citizens a conclusion that 
you, as President of this country, should 

(101) 



Germania Defender 

take a grave and momentous step, contrary 
to the course you have heretofore pursued, 
as regards a matter affecting our foreign 
relations. If at points I shall seem to deal 
with fundamentals, or matters concerning 
which you in your position should and must 
be better informed than I possibly can be, 
I shall do so because it seems desirable to 
state the argument in its entirety. 

Sir, this premise has relation to the sale 
and exportation by American manufactur- 
ers to foreign governments now engaged 
in war, of rifles, cannon, machine guns, 
powder, lead, cartridges, shrapnel, dyna- 
mite, lyddite, benzol, uniforms, armor 
plate, submarine boats, armored automo- 
biles, and other such articles which by their 
nature are intended to be and can be util- 
ized only for the prosecution of war. 

L@inl Steftoag ©If &® Tradl® Sim MiMiln®^ 



Sucli traffic by the law of nations is 
called "contraband of war," and of course 
the articles above mentioned are in the 
highest degree "contraband.' ' Traffic in 
things contraband of war between the citi- 
zens of a neutral power and the govern- 
ments of countries that are at war, funda- 
mentally is illegal. When I say that traf- 

(102) 



Gee mania Defender 

fie in things contraband of war is illegal, 
I do not mean to declare that such traffic 
has yet quite got itself under the ban or 
prohibition of any positive act of Congress 
effective, without further action, to make 
it criminal, but I do mean to declare that 
in the very nature of things, the furnishing 
of articles contraband of war by the citi- 
zens of a neutral country to a belligerent 
power constitutes an injury to and there- 
fore a wrong done against the opposite 
belligerent, that the act is not only in its 
very nature unneutral, but an active enter- 
prise in behalf of the belligerent power re- 
ceiving such supplies ; and that it has been 
so recognized by past and present customs 
and usages of nations, as well as by those 
resolutions of Congress which at one time 
vested the President of the United States 
with the power at his discretion to pro- 
hibit it absolutely, and still vests him with 
such discretion as regards American coun- 
tries. 

None of the articles above described 
when shipped by American manufactur- 
ers to or on the order of Great Britain or 
her allies will or can be protected by the 
United States from seizure, confiscation 
and destruction should same fall into the 
hands of the Germans, nor can compen- 
sation be demanded by our government on 
account of shippers. Moreover, so tainted 

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Germania Defender 

is the traffic that it impugns the integrity 
of the very vehicles that transport it; by 
the Declaration of London of February 
26, 1909, as you know, a vessel carrying 
things that are contraband may be cap- 
tured on the high seas, and if the contra- 
band, reckoned either by value or volume, 
forms more than half of the cargo, such 
vessel itself is subject to condemnation by 
the captor, and you, sir, in such case, even 
if the ships were American ships, regard- 
less of that fact or the loss to American 
citizens, would not even so much as raise 
your voice or write a message of protest 
concerning the seizure and destruction of 
either vessel or cargo. 

Why? Merely because in the forum of 
good conscience the business is foul, and, 
therefore, the sanction of law and those 
rules ordained for the protection of legal 
trade and human rights are denied to it. 

War at all times and everywhere is 
merely homicide on a huge scale; it only 
can be justified on great grounds of na- 
tional peril, and in such case only the 
allegiance a loyal citizen or subject, at 
all times, whether in peace or war, owes to 
his country can lift his participation in war 
above the plane of mere murder; the par- 
ticipation of aliens finds no such excuse 

(104) 



Ger mania Defender 



by which to transform what is essentially 
a crime into a virtue. 

At the bar of God, patriotism con- 
stitutes the only defense which the individ- 
ual soul can plead to avoid that just con- 
demnation earned by every man who in 
this life commits murder. What obliga- 
tion of patriotism possibly can be alleged 
as due from the manufacturers of arms 
and munitions in the United States to 
Great Britain, France and Russia? 

By Article 7, Convention IV, adopted 
at the Hague Conference in 1907, a neu- 
tral State is not bound by the compact to 
prevent the exportation, to or for the ac- 
count of a belligerent, of arms and muni- 
tions of war, and this is all the legal stand- 
ing that the traffic has ; but nowhere do the 
rules suggest that neutrality requires the 
permission of such traffic; to the contrary, 
neutral States themselves are forbidden to 
furnish to belligerent States such articles; 
and such assistance as is now being ren- 
dered by the citizens of the United States 
to the Allies, if rendered by the United 
States itself would, according to the 
Hague Convention, constitute an act of 
war against the opposite belligerents. The 
rule and practice, therefore, clearly are 
approaching the point where in time true 

(105) 



Germania Defender 

neutrality will positively demand the abso- 
lute prohibition and abolition of such 
trade even by citizens. 

Yh<§ AUMmd® @2 <3te@irg© Wadhnnogtom 

Your great predecessor, George Wash- 
ington, had occasion in his first message 
to the Congress, dated January 8, 1790, 
to lay down a rule for the guidance of this 
country which, not only as a means to abol- 
iish the traffic mentioned, but from the 
mere standpoint of expediency, might well 
be adopted not only by this but by every 
other country. The following is a quota- 
tion from his message : 

"A free people ought not only to be 
armed but disciplined ; to which end a uni- 
form and well digested plan is requisite; 
and their safety and interest require that 
they should promote such manufactories 
as tend to render them independent of 
others for essential, particularly military, 
supplies." 

When a few years later war broke out 
between Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Great 
Britain and the United Netherlands upon 
the one part, and France on the other, 
President Washington had occasion to is- 
sue the first proclamation of neutrality 
ever issued by any incumbent of your high 

(106) 



Ger mania Defender 

position. In his proclamation, after nar- 
rating the situation of belligerency, he de- 
clared that "the duty and interest of the 
United States required that they should, 
with sincere and good faith, adopt and 
pursue a conduct friendly and impartial 
toward the belligerent powers," and, there- 
fore, he exhorted and warned the citizens 
of the United States carefully to avoid all 
acts and proceedings whatsoever which 
might in any manner tend to contravene 
such disposition, and in conclusion, said, 
"and I do hereby make known that whoso- 
ever of the citizens of the United States 
shall render himself liable to punishment 
or forfeiture under the law of nations by 
committing, aiding or abetting hostilities 
against any of the said powers, or by car- 
rying to them those articles which are 
deemed contraband by the modern usage 
of nations, will not receive the protection 
of the United States against such punish- 
ment or forfeiture." Clearly to that great 
mind the "carrying of contraband" by citi- 
zens of the United States to any of the 
belligerent powers was an act and proceed- 
ing which, while not prohibited by act of 
Congress, yet contravened that friendly 
and impartial conduct toward the several 
belligerents which his message constrained. 

(107) 



Ger mania Defender 



sirs i&ij»si]Fi@> ddq sub 



And, sir, when the Congress convened 
in 1805, a situation existed strikingly like 
the present. Practically entire Europe was 
engaged at war, it having been begun by 
Great Britain's violation of the treaty of 
Amiens, followed by her declaration of 
war on May 18, 1803. Napoleon and his 
allies were upon the one side and Great 
Britain and her allies on the other, and 
both sides were committing depredations, 
as is now the case, against the sea-borne 
commerce of the United States. At that 
time Thomas Jefferson, the father of the 
political faith to which you, sir, and I alike, 
adhere, and after whose examples I under- 
stand you practice most nearly to conform, 
was President of the United States. On 
December 3, 1805, he transmitted to the 
Congress his Fifth Annual Message. The 
message described conditions in Europe 
and the offenses committed by both sides 
against American shipping. With refer- 
ence to that situation, altogether similar to 
the present, at a time long after the com- 
mencement of the war and when as a re- 
sult of Lord Nelson's victory at Trafalgar 
over the French and Spanish navies in the 
preceding October, Great Britain, then as 

(108) 



Ger mania Defender 

now, was in absolute command of the seas, 
dealing with problems confronting the 
United States, quite similar to those that 
now confront you, he recommended to 
Congress in particular two things, first, 
that the Congress make provision to train 
an army of three hundred thousand men 
for the defense of the United States, and 
second, submitted to their determination, 
4 'an immediate prohibition of the exporta- 
tion of arms and ammunition." 

At that time the joint resolution of 
Congress (adopted in 1898) , which author- 
ized the President, at his discretion, to pro- 
hibit the exportation of arms and ammuni- 
tions to all countries, modified in 1912, to 
refer only to American countries, which 
includes Mexico, had not been enacted. 
Your situation, therefore, differs from 
that of President Jefferson in that while 
he was required to take the initiative and 
propose such a law, you have already re- 
ceived from Congress and your predeces- 
sors expressions which recognize that the 
traffic is in its nature illegal and allows 
you at any moment, by a mere proclama- 
tion, to suspend it, at least as to some coun- 
tries. 

Sir, from every motive of humanity, 
neutrality and justice, you ought now to 
exercise that power as to the countries 
within your discretion, and I respectfully 

(109) 



Germania Defender 

contend should call on Congress to pass an 
act forever prohibiting the traffic referred 
to in time of war, as to all countries. 

Tl® AirgtHiflaiioaal ®2 Oflaffaniran@ss ®§> to fffla© 

I know that it has been urged and the 
idea appears to have prevailed, that to 
place an embargo on the export of arms 
and munitions at this hour would be unfair 
to Great Britain and her allies. When, 
then, could the embargo have been pro- 
claimed, with fairness to them? No such 
embargo is applicable in time of peace, and 
the instant that war ever occurs involving 
Great Britain her ability to reach our 
ports, by reason of her overwhelming sea 
power, becomes exclusive to her and her 
allies. 

Personally, I have never heard the ar- 
gument advanced except by someone who, 
on interrogation, disclosed clearly his per- 
sonal sympathy upon its alleged intrinsic 
merits for the cause of Great Britain and 
her allies. 

In 1805 Great Britain was the only 
belligerent power that had access to the 
American markets for arms and ammuni- 
tion, and yet President Jefferson did not 

(no) 



Ger mania Defender _ 

consider it unfair to recommend to Con- 
gress to shut her off from these markets. 

Thev tell us, sir, that it is from this 
source that the languishing prosperity of 
the United States is to be revived, it is 
not true; the vast commerce of this coun- 
try can not be substantially aided or in- 
jured by a factor so adventitious, so tran- 
sient and confined to so narrow a circle. 
But were it otherwise, how valuable would 
you, sir, esteem a prosperity, gained like 
that of Judas, as the price of blood! 

In all sincerity, I submit the question 
whether it be better for us as a race and 
country to purchase the continued cordial- 
ity of Great Britain, if that be involved, 
by supplying the necessities of her armies, 
or to earn what will soon become inevita- 
ble, and what in human nature must be 
condoned, the exasperation and eternal ill 
will of the Germans, who begin to leel that 
without the aid we are furnishing their 
enemies they might ere this have brought 
them to an accommodation of the quarrel. 
The thing we are doing lies so closely to 
the borderland of wrong, that average 
men, unskilled in legal niceties, will rarely 
be able, now or historically, to trace the 
slender thread of logic which alone holds 
together the fabric of your past policy. 

3 It is easy to conceive how the pursuit ot 
a theory of neutrality, doubtless approved 

(ill) 



Ger mania Defender 

by the legal experts around you, which 
sanctions wrong on the ground of estab- 
lished custom, has made you an unhappy 
witness of the consequence it entails. And 
imagine, sir, if the stockholders of the 
great American corporations that are 
manufacturing shrapnel, could be trans- 
ported bodily to the battle- front in Flan- 
ders along with their shipments, could see 
the shells that lately left their factories ex- 
plode in the faces of German soldiers, and 
when the smoke arose, could view the 
frightful harvest, how many of them think 
you, sir, would vote to continue the manu- 
facture and sale of their products? 

And, sir, consider the fruits of the same 
policy in Mexico. One hundred and fifty 
thousand men, it is said, have now practi- 
cally destroyed that splendid, rich and 
once prosperous country, inhabited by fif- 
teen million people. They could not have 
done this and they can not continue to do 
it without arms and ammunition. Up to 
about the time of the outbreak of the Eu- 
ropean war, prior to which the markets of 
all countries were open to them, they made 
some pretense of fighting for a principle, 
but for almost a year now it has been clear 
that they are fighting without a worthy 
cause or a definite program. Mere bands 
of ruthless, destructive robbers, villains 
and savages, they are preying upon and 

(112^ 



Ger mania Defender 

destroying their own country. Fifteen 
millions without arms are made the victims 
of one hundred and fifty thousand, armed 
with American-made weapons and now 
supplied exclusively with American-made 
munitions. You, sir, must have reports in- 
dicating conditions in that country far 
more accurate than anything available to 
me. What fine-spun theory of law can 
there be that possibly can justify you in 
continuing to license these Mexican bri- 
gands to obtain arms and ammunition in 
the United States for the further lacera- 
tion of their bleeding country, and also for 
the commission of murder and outrage 
against American citizens domiciled in that 
country? You may not care to enter into 
that country and set up a government for 
its benefit, although in the judgment 
of this writer, sooner or later, inevita- 
bly that unwelcome burden must be as- 
sumed by some American President, but 
you might at least, by putting an embargo 
on arms and ammunition, remit them 
back and limit their means for destruction 
to the primitive weapons of knives, sticks 
and stones or bows and arrows, which are 
more suited to their stage of culture than 
the modern instruments of death that our 
manufacturers supply them. 

(113) 



Ger mania Defender 

C@DQsM(Birfflftn(a>ias Jta(i5Eyiiffii^ EMbairg® 

Must a slender rule of law, or not law 
but rather usage, and one that you by reso- 
lution of Congress, at least as regards 
Mexico, are authorized to abrogate, be per- 
mitted forever to overrule the dictates of 
humanity ? Are our international relations 
so delicately balanced that we dare not 
make known to all mankind: 

1. That the first President of this Re- 
public laid it down as a principle, which 
we regard as still obtaining, that each gov- 
ernment ought in its own country to "pro- 
mote and establish such manufactories as 
render them independent of others for 
military supplies." 

2. That it is observed by us that the 
countries composing the Britannic alliance 
now include besides the British Isles, the 
areas, populations and industries of 
France, Russia, Montenegro, Serbia, 
Italy, Egypt, India, Australia, New Zea- 
land, Canada, and Japan, containing the 
greatest manufacturing centers of the 
earth ; that their adversaries consist merely 
of three comparatively small countries, 
Germany, Austria and Turkey, only one 
of them, Germany, holding high rank as a 
manufacturing nation ; that a year now has 
passed since the beginning of hostilities; 
that in all reason the Allies have had ample 

(114) 



Geemania Defender 

time to augment their resources and to 
establish instrumentalities adequate to pro- 
vide themselves with every article required 
for the further prosecution of war ; that on 
Thursday, July 8, 1915, debate in the Brit- 
ish House of Commons disclosed that the 
great English arsenal at Woolwich lately 
has not been run to its capacity; that it is 
observable to the world that the Allies' re- 
sources in men, money and raw material, 
if they see fit to employ them, are beyond 
all comparison greater than those of their 
enemies. 

3. That there reside within the body 
of this country, constituting one of the 
largest individual racial elements of our 
citizenship, approximately 20,000,000 peo- 
ple of German birth or of German ex- 
traction ; that Russia's participation in the 
present war, according to her own avowal, 
was due to the racial sentiment existing 
between the Slavs of that great but not 
wholly Slavonic country and their kinsmen 
in Serbia. That similar ties of blood bind 
our German element to the people of their 
former country, and that while they en- 
tertain no disposition whatever in favor of 
the United States interposing in the ter- 
rible European conflict in aid of their 
German kinsmen, it is with utter agony of 
spirit that they observe, day by day, enor- 
mous volumes of death-dealing instru- 

(115) 



Geb mania Defender 

ments furnished from the United States to 
the enemies of Germany, poured out 
from American manufactories, and by the 
modern methods of transportation rushed 
to the battle line, where probably within a 
week or two after they leave the makers' 
hands they are exploding in the bowels of 
fathers, brothers, uncles and cousins of 
this mighty proportion of our constitu- 
ency ; that there is no better element in the 
citizenship of this country than those re- 
ferred to ; that in every crisis that this coun- 
try has endured, they have measured up 
to the highest standards required for 
broad, tolerant, robust, red-blooded Amer- 
icans; that this country can not "regard 
with indifference" the suffering and sor- 
row which overwhelms them as the result 
of a traffic, which not only is condemned 
by the laws of humanity, and under dis- 
favor of the laws of nations, but under the 
laws of this country, as regards American 
countries, is criminal the instant that it re- 
ceives your dissanction; that by all prece- 
dents of statecraft here and elsewhere gov- 
ernments regard with tender solicitude dis- 
tress and agony visited on any large bodies 
of their citizens, and that it is the proper 
function of governments to assuage their 
suffering, if by just and moderate action 
they can do so. That by reason alone of 

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Germania Defender 

sympathy for the feelings of Jewish- 
Americans this government some years 
ago cancelled an important subsisting 
treaty with Russia because of mistreatment 
accorded Jewish-Russians by Russians in 
Russia. 

4. That we want to be friends with 
all the world and purpose wrong to no 
nation. That as regards the purchase of 
arms and ammunition in the United 
States by Great Britain, she holds no vest- 
ed or treaty right; that the practice has 
now extended utterly beyond anything of 
the kind that ever occurred before in the 
history of the world, or that was dreamed 
of when the existing rules of international 
law omitting prohibition of such traffic 
were accepted by the nations. That prior 
to modern times the means of transporta- 
tion were so inefficient and the require- 
ments of war so different from those of 
this day, that probably no case seemed 
likely where the fortunes of war were apt 
to be influenced decisively by the purchase 
of arms or munitions in foreign countries ; 
that in the present case to the contrary it is 
observed that the United States has become 
almost the depot of arms, ammunition and 
supplies for the outfitting of the vast 
armies of the Allies; that such radical 
changes in circumstances have grave 

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Gebmania Defender 

weight with and are justly entitled to au- 
thorize us to review the entire question. 

5. That as regards Mexico, you feel 
the time has come when this country can 
no longer comiive at the aimless and wan- 
ton destruction being prosecuted there by 
means of arms and munitions obtained in 
this country, and that you have now ex- 
ercised the discretion vested in you by law 
to suspend the traffic. 

And further that you have now deemed 
it proper to call on Congress to adopt and 
hereafter forever to maintain as the per- 
manent policy of these United States, first, 
as counselled by Washington, the estab- 
lishment in our own behalf of "such manu- 
factories as will make us independent of all 
others for military supplies," and second, 
as counselled by Jefferson, that citizens of 
the United States henceforth shall be ab- 
solutely prohibited from furnishing arms, 
munitions and supplies suitable only for 
the purposes of war to or for account of 
governments of any and all other coun- 
tries that are engaged in war. 

I believe that no course you could take 
would be more consistent with that pro- 
found and tender humanity that exalts 
your nature and makes you not only a 
champion for the rights but a mourner for 
the sufferings of all peoples everywhere, 
or, ridding the question of international 

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Geemania Defender 



lawyers' technical tangles, that you, with 
greater pleasure would pursue. 

Mr. President, the earth is on fire ! On 
every continent the flames are bursting 
out. Approximately the whole of Europe, 
most of Africa, all of Asia Minor, a vast 
portion of Asia, including Turkey, Si- 
beria, Arabia, India, and Japan; Aus- 
tralia and New Zealand; the north half of 
our continent, Mexico, and even the 
wretched island of Santo Domingo are in- 
volved; the wild flames are now licking 
around the borders of our own country, 
and no eye can see the end ; the mind stag- 
gers before a spectacle never witnessed in 
history nor dreamed of heretofore in man's 
maddest imaginings. Shall the United 
States continue to furnish fuel for all of 
those flames? 

Very respectfully, 

R. C. Duff. 



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SEVEN QGJESTHOMS ANSWERED 



Germania Defender 



SIEVIEM QHJEST10MS MSWIEIED 

To the Houston Post: 

Mr. A. T. Shulz of Mexia, Texas, re- 
garding an article entitled, "An Open 
Letter to the President,' ' lately contrib- 
uted by me to your paper, propounds to 
me through the Post of the 11th, seven 
questions, which in the main are pertinent 
and are entitled to a candid reply. With 
3 r our kind permission, I will answer them 
through your columns, quoting first the 
questions, respectively, and following each 
question with my answer : 

1. Question: Is there any ethical 
dif ference in furnishing arms and ammu- 
nition to warring nations by a neutral 
power and the furnishing of foodstuffs or 
clothing for the feeding and clothing of 
such armies, that they may be in proper 
condition to use arms and ammunition? 

Answer: There is no ethical differ- 
ence. The Declaration of London, of 
Februaiy 26, 1909, represents the sense of 
the principal maritime powers, which in- 
cludes the earth's best civilization today, 
and it was unanimously agreed between 
them that foodstuffs and clothing, when 
intended for military use, were contraband 
of war equally with arms and ammunition. 

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Germania Defender 

In my judgment expediency and true neu- 
trality both concur in the doctrine laid 
down by George Washington with refer- 
ence to the United States that each coun- 
try ought to establish at home facilities to 
provide itself with all supplies required for 
strictly military purposes, and the citizens 
of foreign nations, not parties to interna- 
tional controversies, ought not to be ex- 
pected nor under the rules of neutrality 
permitted to supplement the weakness or 
folly of any country that fails to adopt 
the principle announced by President 
Washington. It is stated that this princi- 
ple is being pursued, and for many years 
has been pursued by Germany and for the 
same time has been ignored by England 
and Russia. The result to date would 
seem to speak for itself. 

2. Question: Is there any ethical 
difference in furnishing cotton and other 
substances for the making of ammunition 
and the furnishing of it already prepared? 

Answer: There is none. But as re- 
gards an article, such as cotton, the use of 
which for war purposes is trivial compared 
with its general use, it would be neither 
practical nor humane to deny exportation 
to belligerent countries. During the Russo- 
Japanese war of 1904, Russia, because it 
desired to prevent the government of 
Japan from obtaining supplies of Indian 

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cotton for the manufacture of explosives, 
declared cotton to be contraband of war. 
Great Britain instantly and sternly pro- 
tested to Russia against such declaration, 
and subsequently in 1909 at the conference 
of nations called by herself to meet at 
London, with full knowledge of the use of 
cotton in the construction of certain ex- 
plosives, insisted, and all the other nations 
concurred, that cotton ought to be placed 
on, and it was thereupon placed at the head 
of the list of articles which no nation 
should ever declare to be contraband of 
war. I stand absolutely on the ethics and 
reasoning that then and there prevailed. 

3. Question : Is there any practical 
reason why you should not sell what you 
have to sell to any nation that wishes to 

buy? 

Answer: There are not only practi- 
cal but moral reasons why citizens of a 
neutral country should not sell nor be per- 
mitted to sell articles such as arms and am- 
munition to nations or factions of nations 
engaged in war. One extremely practical 
reason is that such traffic is liable to build 
up hatreds which without other occasion 
will conduce to war; such traffic from the 
United States to Cuba was undoubtedly 
one of the animating causes that led to the 
war between the United States and Spain 
in 1898. Another practical reason is that 

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Ger mania Defender 

the United States, while having developed 
an export trade amounting to two and one- 
half billion dollars per annum, is merely on 
the threshold of its possibilities along that 
line, and if we maintain friendship with all 
countries we ought in the future, under the 
influence of universal good will, to extend 
our commerce with all countries, greatly to 
our practical advantage. Another practi- 
cal advantage of prohibiting the exporta- 
tion of arms and ammunition as regards 
Mexico, is to abolish the peculiar policy of 
furnishing those brigands with guns, can- 
non and munitions with which to defy the 
United States, to shoot American citizens, 
as in the fifty-two cases at Nogales, and 
with which to invade Texas, as thev are 
now doing, in Cameron County. 

4. Question: Are you responsible 
for the fact that any one, or more, of the 
nations to which your markets are open, so 
far as you are concerned, either can supply 
herself, or is shut out from your market 
by other nations? 

Answer: A book of fascinating pow- 
er, dealing with world politics prevailing 
during the last century, might be written 
in reply to the above question. No, the 
United States is not responsible for the 
fact that Great Britain and her allies, pro- 
tected by the overwhelming naval power of 

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Germania Defender 



Great Britain, can reach American mar- 
kets for ammunition, whereas Germany 
and her allies can not. British foreign and 
naval policy, the most astute, brilliant and 
successful ever practiced by any nation on 
earth, which, continuing in consistent and 
militant form at all times, in both war and 
peace, for three hundred years, has ex- 
panded a group of small islands off the 
west coast of Europe into the greatest em- 
pire known in history, alone is responsible. 
When some centuries ago the mighty 
minds of early English statesmen mapped 
out a program of grandeur where Eng- 
land should attempt the astounding feat 
of dominating the earth, the first and most 
important truth that dawned upon their 
minds was that whatever nation command- 
ed the seas thereby instantaneously domi- 
nated seventy-one per cent, of the earth's 
surface, together with all islands, all sav- 
age or effete countries and all commerce 
that must move by the sea. The attainment 
and maintenance of such dominion for cen- 
turies has been the program of Great Brit- 
ain. Her statesmen have co-ordinated and 
looked ahead, and they undoubtedly knew 
in 1909, that if they maintained their two- 
power naval program, a stipulation in the 
rules of war that obligations of neutrality 
do not require a neutral power to prohibit 

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Ger mania Defender 

its citizens from selling arms and ammu- 
nition to belligerents, was exactly as 
though it were written that in any war 
involving Great Britain the citizens of the 
United States might sell to Great Britain 
and her allies, but to them alone. The 
United States apparently has never appre- 
ciated that danger exists for her in Great 
Britain's program of two-power suprem- 
acy at sea. Please understand the writer 
has no personal prejudice. I have merely 
examined these questions with the eye and 
apprehension of a student, and of an 
American. A blind man, however, ought 
to be able to see that German militarism, 
or Russian militarism, or militarism on the 
part of the whole of Europe, can only tear 
itself to pieces. If directed against us in 
the absence of navalism, it would neces- 
sarily drown on the eastern shores of the 
Atlantic two thousand miles away, with- 
out ever disturbing our serenity; whereas 
navalism so efficiently represented by 
Great Britain, steams to our very doors, 
and patrols and menaces our shores and 
ports. At the moment of this writing, and 
every day since the war began, the smoke 
of British cruisers is and has been percepti- 
ble almost from the custom house at New 
York. At the same time, off our western 
shores, Great Britain has posted an ally, an 
ally not only for defense, but for offense, 

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Gee mania Defender 

the Japanese, who possess a fleet about 
equal to our own and an army strong 
enough to cross into Asia, eleven years ago, 
and beat the Russians, a power fifty per 
cent, greater, numerically, than ourselves, 
and w r ith a standing army larger than that 
of Germany. Coached by a craft as keen 
as Iago's, Japan, which has kept her army 
and navy entirely out of and its strength 
unimpaired by the general melee in Eu- 
rope, sits opposite our shores as Britan- 
nia's eastern outpost and final reserves, 
finger on trigger, and with eyes that sweep 
the horizon for any possible foe of Great 
Britain that can not longer be fooled by 
international lies or bribed by war-orders 
to continue its besotted slumber. This situ- 
ation is as much as to say to us, that if we 
are good, according to the standards of 
Great Britain, we shall be safe ; but if we 
are naughty about our cotton or on other 
subjects growing out of the present war in 
Europe, we shall be sorry. We are not 
"responsible" for this situation except in 
the sense that it is folly for a people to 
sleep all the time at a juncture when they 
ought not to sleep at all. 

5. Question : What would be your 
position if the United States were attacked 
by a power, or a combination of powers, 
that was able to furnish all its munitions 
and the United States had a shortage, and 

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Ger mania Defender 

wished to buy from neutral nations able to 
furnish what she needed? 

Answer: I would favor resorting to 
every means and exerting every power on 
earth (leaving all rules of neutrality or 
ethics to be considered by those from whom 
we were forced to purchase and who, as in 
the present case of Holland, as regards 
Germany, under the duress of our enemy 
or constraint of true neutrality, might re- 
fuse to sell) to secure from whatever 
source obtainable the supplies required to 
save our country from the consequences 
of the blind folly of modern politicians, 
statesmen and easy-marks (in which list 
the President clearly does not intend to be 
enrolled), who had scorned the wisdom of 
George Washington, contained in mes- 
sages and speeches, time and again warn- 
ing us : 

"To be prepared for war is one of the 
most effectual means of preserving peace. 
A free people ought not only to be armed, 
but disciplined; to which end a uniform 
and well digested plan is requisite, and 
their safety and interest require that they 
should promote such manufactories as 
tend to render them independent of others 
for essential, particularly military, sup- 
plies" (1790). 

And again: 

"The United States ought not to iti- 

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Gkr mania Defender 

dulge a persuasion that, contrary to the or- 
der of human events, they will forever keep 
at a distance those painful appeals to arms 
with which the history of every other na- 
tion abounds. There is a rank due to the 
United States among nations which will be 
withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the repu- 
tation of weakness. If we desire to avoid 
insult, we must be able to repel it; if we 
desire to secure peace, it must be known 
that we are at all times ready for war" 
(1793). 

And if you want to know what disre- 
gard of this salutary advice is at this mo- 
ment costing us, reflect upon the situation 
of the cotton farmers of the South. The 
losses inflicted on them to date by Great 
Britain's wanton and illegal interference 
with their shipments, even to neutral coun- 
tries, mounts into hundreds of millions of 
dollars. Yet American politicians, with 
the eminent exception of Hoke Smith, in- 
stead of standing up like men for the one 
direct and forceful policy that will pre- 
serve their rights, viz: that England shall 
absolutely keep her hands off of our for- 
eign trade, bend and truckle to the wave 
of pro-British sentiment now temporarily 
predominant in this country, and propose 
impossible measures for lending money to 
the farmers, that is to say, to plunge them 
into debt, for want of courage to vindicate 

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Ger mania Defender 

our rights throughout the earth to open 
seas and open markets, the restoration of 
which will return the price of cotton to a 
figure that will enable the cotton farmer 
to pay his old debts without incurring new 
debts. 

6. Question : Is it not in your mind, 
that if this power, or combination of pow- 
ers, was Germany and her allies, attacking 
the United States, that you hope the Unit- 
ed States would be shut out and conquered 
by them; that if it was Great Britain, or 
Great Britain and her allies attacking us, 
you would think it more than reasonable 
that Germany and the other nations not in 
the alliance should sell us ammunition and 
anything else we needed? 

Answer: The first half of this ques- 
tion is an insult, but it shall be answered 
courteously. My granduncle, an old gen- 
tleman, told me many years ago that when 
he was a boy he used to see, converse with 
and still remembered a venerable relative 
back in North Carolina, who at that time 
was upward of ninety years of age. He 
stated that this old gentleman was a crip- 
ple, able to move only with the aid of 
crutches. He said that both feet of the old 
man were practically destroyed; that they 
had been frozen off at Valley Forge, he 
being one of that devoted few, who in the 
midst of desertion, abided the rigors of 

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Gebmania Defender 

that terrible campaign along with George 
Washington. It, of course, constitutes no 
merit on my part that this old gentleman 
was one of my direct ancestors, but if there 
has been any counter-current of cowardice 
or treachery infused into the blood since 
his day, it has escaped observation. When- 
ever Germany affords to the United States 
one-half the provocation for war that we 
suffered in 1776 and 1812 from Great 
Britain, or whenever she shall purposely 
and willfully inf lict on our people as much 
actual damage and suffering as the agri- 
cultural interests of the South are now suf- 
fering from Great Britain, and can not 
otherwise be constrained to do us justice, 
with profound regret and sorrow for the 
necessity of fighting so great a people, and 
one that so far has never in its history 
either planned or meditated a willful in- 
jury directed against us, I shall favor, and 
so far as in me lies, assist in a war by us 
against the Germans. 

Answering the second half of your 
question, if Great Britain ever attacks the 
United States, unless in the meantime we 
greatly increase our navy, we shall not have 
access to any market or port of any other 
country on earth where ammunition or 
supplies can be purchased. Our exports 
and imports now amounting to four and 
one-half billion dollars yearly will be de- 

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Gee mania Defender 

stroyed in an instant; just as has been the 
case with Germany, but worse. 

7. Question: Is not your sense of 
justice and your common, good old every- 
day philosophy, tinged most extraordinari- 
ly with partisanship ? 

Answer: I am not a partisan as re- 
gards the European war; but for some 
years have been a rather close student of 
history. I have not contented myself mere- 
ly with dim remembrances of things trans- 
piring in my own lifetime under my own 
observation, but so far as I have been able 
have sought to ascertain the causes under- 
lying and producing present conditions. 
In such manner I have gained I think cor- 
rect information concerning the causes 
that have brought about the present Euro- 
pean war, upon the maturest consideration 
of which I am convinced of the rectitude 
and justice of the German cause. 

These, sir, are my answers to your 
questions. 

Very respectfully, 

R. C. Duff. 
Houston, Texas, August 12. 1915. 



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